A Galway man's story of a Kerry polar hero

IF he had done what his mother wanted him to do, Aidan Dooley might be a bank manager by now, with a bank wife and a bank mortgage and bank babies.
Instead, after a few years with AIB in Dublin and London, he threw up the classic permanent and pensionable job and ran away with the circus.
Well, maybe not with the circus, but to the theatre.
It’s a dangerous thing to do, to follow your dream. But Aidan, from Galway, caught the acting bug at a young age and it never left his bloodstream.
Even if you don’t know his name, you have heard his voice on radio. “That young officer turns round to me and Bill and says something I only heard once in 27 years in the Royal Navy. A British officer says 'I made a mistake’.”
You’ll probably hear it again, when Aidan again tours his phenomenally successful one-man show Tom Crean — Antarctic Explorer next year.

Read the full feature in this week's edition.

• The story of Tom Crean, and of Aidan Dooley’s tribute to him, is told in a new book, Travels with Tom Crean — Antarctic Explorer, published by the Collins Press. It will be launched on Friday in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway by Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent of The Irish Times.