Robert Erskine Childers DSC (25 June 1870 – 24 November 1922), often called Erskine Childers, was an English-born Irish nationalist. He became known as a writer for his descriptions of the Second Boer War, his novel The Riddle of the Sands (1903), which told a story about Germany planning to attack England by sea, and his ideas about how Ireland could gain independence.
Childers believed in the British Empire and volunteered to fight in the Second Boer War in South Africa. However, his experiences there made him lose faith in British rule. He ran for office in British elections as a member of the Liberal Party, which supported giving Ireland more self-government. Later, he supported Irish republicanism and wanted to end all ties with Britain.
For the Irish Volunteers, he helped bring weapons into Ireland, which were later used against British soldiers during the Easter Rebellion. He played a major role in talks between Ireland and Britain that led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. However, he was elected to the first Irish parliament as someone who opposed the treaty. He took part in the Irish Civil War, which happened after the treaty, and was executed by the Irish Free State.
As a writer, his most important work was The Riddle of the Sands, published 11 years before World War I began. The book described a secret German fleet planning to attack England. This influenced Winston Churchill, who was in charge of the Royal Navy, to strengthen England’s naval forces. When World War I started, Churchill asked Childers to join the Royal Navy, and he was given the Distinguished Service Cross.
Childers was the son of Robert Caesar Childers, a British scholar. His son was the fourth president of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers. He was also related to British politician Hugh Childers and Irish nationalist Robert Barton. His grandchildren included Erskine Barton Childers, a writer and diplomat, and Nessa Childers, a former member of the European Parliament.
Early life
Childers was born in Mayfair, London, in 1870. He was the second son of Robert Caesar Childers, a translator and scholar from a family related to the church, and Anna Mary Henrietta Barton, who came from an Anglo-Irish family that owned land in County Wicklow, Ireland. This family also had interests in France, including a winery named after them. When Childers was six years old, his father died from tuberculosis. His mother, who showed no signs of the disease at the time, was placed in an isolation hospital to protect her children. She wrote letters to Childers regularly until she died from tuberculosis six years later, without ever seeing her children again. The five children were sent to live with their mother’s uncle, the Bartons, at Glendalough, Ireland. They were treated well by their new family, and Childers developed a strong interest in Ireland, though he lived in the privileged position of the Protestant ruling class at the time. According to his biographer, Michael Hopkinson, the conflict between his Anglo-Irish identity and his personal traits later led him to support strong Irish independence.
Childers was taught at home by tutors until he was ten years old, after which he attended a preparatory school in England and returned to Glendalough for holidays. His grandfather, Canon Charles Childers, recommended that he attend Haileybury and Imperial Service College in 1883. His early performance there was described as average, but he later won prizes for Latin and became a leader of his house in his final year. He earned a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied classical subjects and then law. He was known for editing the university magazine, Cambridge Review. Despite not having a strong voice or debating skills, he became president of the Trinity College Debating Society. Although he admired his cousin, Hugh Childers, a British politician who supported early Irish self-government, Childers strongly opposed this policy in debates, warning that Irish national goals were incompatible with British safety. An injury to his leg from hillwalking, which lasted his entire life, prevented him from playing rugby but made him a skilled rower.
After staying an extra year at Cambridge to earn a law degree, Childers briefly worked as a trainee lawyer in London. However, after four months, influenced by his cousin Hugh Childers, he left this job and attended a school to prepare for an exam to become a parliamentary official. He passed the exam and, in early 1895, became a junior clerk in the House of Commons. In this role, he was responsible for preparing official and legally correct bills based on government proposals.
Sailing
Childers and his brother Henry kept a small sailboat on Lough Dan, near Glendalough. While at Cambridge, he sometimes sailed on the Norfolk Broads. Because of his sciatic injury, many of his sports were no longer possible. Walter Runciman, a friend from Trinity College, encouraged him to take up sailing. After learning the basics of sailing as a deckhand on Runciman's yacht, Childers and his brother Henry bought their own boat in 1893. The boat was a former racing yacht named Shulah. This vessel needed experienced sailors and was not good for beginners. They sold it in 1895.
His next boat was a small, old yacht called Marguerite, an 18-foot (5.5 m) half-deck, which he kept at Greenhithe, near London. After teaching himself navigation and taking lessons in sailboat handling, he sailed trips around the English coast and across the English Channel with his brother Henry. In April 1897, he replaced Marguerite with a larger, more comfortable 30-foot (9.1 m) cutter named Vixen. In August 1897, he took a long cruise in Vixen to the Frisian Islands, Norderney, and the Baltic with Henry and Ivor Lloyd Jones, a friend from Cambridge, as crew. These experiences inspired him to write a book called The Riddle of the Sands in 1903, which became his most famous work and a popular bestseller.
In 1903, Childers was sailing again in the Frisian Islands on a boat named Sunbeam, which he bought with William le Fanu and other friends from his university days. He was now joined by his new wife, Molly Osgood. Molly’s father, Dr. Hamilton Osgood, had a 28-ton yacht named Asgard built as a wedding gift for the couple. Sunbeam was only a temporary boat while Asgard was being prepared.
Asgard was Childers’s last and most famous yacht. In July 1914, he used it to secretly transport 900 Mauser Model 1871 rifles and 29,000 black powder cartridges to the Irish Volunteers movement at the fishing village of Howth, County Dublin. After Childers’s death, the Irish government acquired Asgard as a sail training vessel in 1961. It was stored on dry land at Kilmainham Gaol in 1979 and is now displayed at The National Museum of Ireland.
War service
Childers was originally a strong supporter of the British Empire, like many men of his background and education. As a student at Haileybury College, a school that prepared young men for work in India, it was common for students to believe in the Empire. However, Childers did not fully agree with all the traditional values taught at the school.
In 1898, as tensions grew between British settlers in South Africa and the Boer people, Childers joined the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC), a volunteer military group. A group of HAC soldiers became part of the City Imperial Volunteers, a temporary force made up of soldiers from different regiments. Childers worked as a "spare driver," caring for horses and helping transport supplies. In February 1900, the group traveled to South Africa, where most soldiers were sick from the journey. Childers helped care for the unit’s 30 horses. Though the group did not see action immediately, they later fought in battles to protect British forces.
In August 1900, Childers was injured and sent to a hospital in Pretoria, South Africa. During his trip, he traveled with wounded soldiers from Ireland who remained loyal to Britain. This experience contrasted with his later views, as he wrote in 1914 about Irish men who wanted independence from Britain. After recovering, Childers returned to his unit but was later sent back to England in October 1900.
By the start of World War I, Childers had grown unsure about Britain’s government and politics. He left the Liberal Party because of delays in giving Ireland self-government. He also wrote books criticizing British policies in Ireland and South Africa. In 1914, he joined a group planning to smuggle weapons from Germany to Irish nationalists. This effort was partly a response to another group, the Ulster Volunteers, who had imported weapons to support British rule in Ireland. Though the Irish Volunteers later promised to help defend Ireland during the war, the weapons Childers helped deliver were used in the Easter Rising of 1916.
The group included people like Alice Stopford Green, Roger Casement, and Darrell Figgis. Childers, who had experience at sea, chose to use the boat Asgard for the mission. The weapons were delivered to Ireland on July 26, 1914, but the police and military tried to stop the transfer, leading to a deadly clash known as the Bachelor’s Walk massacre.
When World War I began in August 1914, Childers was in Dublin, writing about the mission for American newspapers. He believed Ireland could still be part of the British Empire as a self-governing nation, so he volunteered to fight for Britain. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a lieutenant. Winston Churchill, a British official, later praised Childers’ book The Riddle of the Sands for helping prepare the country for war.
Childers’ first task was to plan an attack on Germany, the opposite of the plan in his book. He worked on a ship called HMS Engadine, teaching pilots how to navigate. He flew missions and earned recognition for his work. In 1915, he joined another ship, HMS Ben-my-Chree, where he fought in the Gallipoli Campaign and earned a Distinguished Service Cross.
In 1916, Childers returned to London to work in the Admiralty, assigning seaplanes to ships. Later that year, he trained to join a naval unit in the English Channel. In 1917, he was asked to help organize a meeting in Ireland to discuss Irish government plans, but he was not chosen because his writings made him seem too supportive of Home Rule. Instead, he continued his naval work.
Marriage
In autumn 1903, Childers traveled to the United States as part of a mutual visit between the Honourable Artillery Company of London and the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts in Boston. Childers carried a letter of introduction to Dr. Hamilton Osgood, a respected and wealthy doctor in Boston, which had been given to him by Boston banker Sumner Permain, a friend of Childers’s father. Childers was invited to dinner at Osgood’s home, where he met Mary Alden Osgood, known as "Molly," the doctor’s daughter. Molly, who was well-read and shared republican ideals, and Childers found they enjoyed each other’s company. Childers decided to stay longer and spent much time with Molly. The couple married at Boston’s Trinity Church on 6 January 1904. Cousin Robert Barton traveled to Boston to serve as best man.
Childers returned to London with his wife and resumed his work in the House of Commons. His reputation as a well-known writer helped the couple connect with political leaders, which Molly enjoyed. However, she also worked to reduce Childers’s support for imperialism, which was already weakening. Molly grew to admire Britain, its systems, and its willingness to fight for smaller nations against powerful ones. Over the next seven years, the couple lived comfortably in a rented flat in Chelsea, supported by Childers’s salary—he had been promoted to the position of parliamentary Clerk of Petitions in 1903—his writing, and generous financial help from Dr. Osgood.
Despite a serious weakness in her legs caused by a childhood skating injury, Molly enjoyed sailing. She first sailed on a boat named Sunbeam and later on many voyages in her father’s ship, Asgard. Letters Childers wrote to his wife show the couple’s happiness during this time. Three sons were born: Erskine in December 1905, Henry, who died before his first birthday, in February 1907, and Robert Alden in December 1910.
Writing
Childers's first published work was some light detective stories he wrote for The Cambridge Review while he was the editor.
His first book was In the Ranks of the C.I.V., which described his experiences in the Boer War. He wrote it without intending to publish it. While serving with the Honourable Artillery Company in South Africa, he wrote many long, descriptive letters about his experiences to his two sisters, Dulcibella and Constance. They and a family friend, Elizabeth Thompson, daughter of George Smith of the publishing house Smith, Elder, edited the letters into book form. Print proofs were ready for Childers to approve when he returned from the war in October 1900, and Smith, Elder published the work in November. It was well-timed to capture public interest in the war, which lasted until May 1902, and it sold in large numbers.
Childers edited his colleague Basil Williams's more formal book, The HAC in South Africa, the official history of the regiment's part in the campaign, for publication in 1903.
Childers's neighbor, Leo Amery, was the editor of The Times’s History of the War in South Africa. He had already persuaded Basil Williams to write volume four of the work and used this to persuade Childers to prepare volume five. This profitable commission took up much of Childers's free time until its publication in 1907. The book highlighted British political and military errors and contrasted them with the tactics used by Boer guerrillas.
In January 1901, Childers began writing his novel, The Riddle of the Sands, but progress was slow. He was not able to describe the plot outline to Williams until winter of that year. After a hard summer of writing, the manuscript was sent to Reginald Smith at Smith Elder. However, in February 1903, just as Childers was preparing to return to editing The HAC in South Africa, Smith returned the novel with instructions for major changes. With the help of his sisters, who compared the new manuscript pages to the original, Childers completed the final version in time for publication in May 1903. Based on his sailing trips with his brother Henry along the German coast, the book predicted war with Germany and urged British preparedness. Much speculation has occurred about which of Childers's friends inspired the character "Carruthers" in the novel. He was not based on Henry Childers but on the yachting enthusiast Walter Runciman, a long-term friend. "Davies" is Childers himself. The book was widely popular and has never gone out of print. The Observer listed it among "The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time," and The Telegraph ranked it as the third best spy novel of all time. It is often called the first spy novel, though some argue that Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, published two years earlier, holds that title. The book was extremely influential: Winston Churchill later credited it as a major reason the Admiralty decided to establish naval bases at Invergordon, Rosyth on the Firth of Forth, and Scapa Flow in Orkney. It also influenced authors such as John Buchan and Eric Ambler.
Motivated by his belief that war with Germany was likely, Childers wrote two books on cavalry warfare, both strongly critical of what he saw as outdated British tactics. While everyone agreed that cavalry should be trained to fight on foot with firearms, traditionalists wanted cavalry to be trained as the "arme blanche," using shock tactics with lances and sabers. Training in traditional, mounted tactics had been restored after the modernizing reformer Field Marshal Roberts retired in 1904, when General Sir John French, who had led successful cavalry charges at the Battle of Elandslaagte and the relief of Kimberley, was promoted to senior army positions. Childers’s War and the Arme Blanche (1910) included a foreword from Roberts and argued that cavalry should "make genuinely destructive assaults upon riflemen and guns" by firing from the saddle. French, a traditionalist, defended the old tactics in his preface to Prussian general Friedrich von Bernhardi’s Cavalry in War and Peace (1910), creating an unlikely alliance. This allowed Childers to respond with German Influence on British Cavalry (1911), a strong rebuttal to the criticisms of his book made by French and Bernhardi.
As a prospective Liberal Party candidate for Parliament, Childers wrote his last major book: The Framework of Home Rule (1911). His main argument was economic: an Irish parliament (without Westminster MPs) would be responsible for making fiscal policy for the benefit of the country and would hold "dominion" status, similar to how Canada managed its affairs. His arguments were based in part on the findings of the Childers Commission of the 1890s, which was chaired by his cousin, Hugh Childers. Erskine Childers consulted Ulster Unionists while preparing Framework and wrote that their reluctance to accept the policy would be easily overcome. Although this marked a major shift from his earlier views, enacting Irish Home Rule was the Liberal government’s policy at the time.
A growing problem was that the book assumed fiscal independence and self-government for the entire island of Ireland, including the wealthier and more industrialized areas around Belfast. During his research, Childers mistakenly believed that the opposition from Unionists in the region was mainly bluff or that the industrialists’ entrepreneurial spirit would quickly overcome any initial financial challenges. He was wrong: this disparity, along with the largely Protestant Unionists’ fear of Catholic "rule from Rome," contributed to the failure of the 1917 Home Rule Convention and, eventually, the Partition of Ireland in 1921.
Reception of the book was generally positive in both England and Ireland. However, The Belfast Newsletter warned that the Catholic Church’s influence might hinder acceptance of such proposals. The Manchester Guardian criticized Childers’s optimistic comparisons to other British overseas territories, noting that the colonial rule effective in distant parts of the empire would be impossible to apply in Ireland. This point was raised by other reviewers as evidence of Childers’s tendency toward white supremacy. For example, Robert Lynd of the Daily News wrote that Childers relied on the argument that "the essential Irish character […] is the same as the character of other white races," and the Glasgow Herald questioned why Childers would limit the benefits of freedom to "white races."
Conversion
There was no one event that caused Childers to change from supporting the British Empire to becoming a leader in the Irish revolution. In his own words, spoken on June 8, 1922, while serving as a Teachta Dála (Deputy) in the Dáil Éireann, he explained: "[…] through a process of moral and intellectual belief, I moved from Unionism to Nationalism and finally to Republicanism. That is a simple story." He became increasingly convinced, later described as a "fanatical obsession" by both his critics and friends, that Ireland should have its own government.
An early reason for his disappointment with Britain's policies was his belief that the Boer War could have been avoided with more patient and skillful negotiation. His friend and biographer Basil Williams noted that during their time in South Africa, both Childers and Williams began to adopt more liberal ideas, partly because of the democratic people they met and mainly due to their discussions about politics and life. Molly Childers, who came from a family with roots in the Mayflower, also influenced her husband’s views about Britain’s right to rule other countries.
This change in thinking was already in place when, in the summer of 1908, Childers and his cousin Robert Barton traveled by car to examine agricultural co-operatives in southern and western Ireland—areas suffering from extreme poverty. "I have come back," he wrote to Basil Williams, "finally and immutably a convert to Home Rule […] though we both grew up with the most extreme form of Unionism."
In the autumn of 1910, Childers resigned his position as Clerk of Petitions to join the Liberal Party, which supported Home Rule. The Liberal Party relied on Irish Home Rule members to maintain its majority in Parliament. In a lecture in Dublin in March 1912, Childers described the benefits of the Liberal Party’s proposed Home Rule Bill (presented to the UK Parliament on April 11, 1912). His explanation of the bill was well received, but his audience reacted "coldly" to any idea that Ireland might remain part of the British Empire after gaining independence.
Childers ran for a parliamentary seat in Devonport, a naval town. As the author of The Riddle of the Sands, a book that supported a stronger Royal Navy, Childers was almost certain to win the vote when the next election occurred. However, due to threats of civil war from Ulster Unionists, the party considered removing parts of Ulster from a self-governed Ireland. Childers gave up his candidacy and left the party.
The Liberal Party’s Home Rule Bill, introduced in 1912, became law in 1914 but was immediately delayed by a separate law for the duration of World War I, which had just begun. A plan to exclude six of Ulster’s nine counties from self-government was also canceled. On Easter Monday, 1916, the Irish Volunteers (who had used rifles Childers had delivered at Howth in 1914) launched a violent uprising (the "Easter Rising") to protest the delay. The British government harshly suppressed the uprising with artillery and severely punished the captured leaders. This action upset Childers, and he did not regret that the Howth rifles had been used against British soldiers.
Home Rule
In the United Kingdom General Election of November 1918, Sinn Féin won 73 of the 105 Irish seats. The party decided not to accept their positions in the Westminster parliament. In January 1919, they created their own assembly, called the Dáil Éireann, in Dublin. In March 1919, Childers went to the Dublin office of Sinn Féin and offered to help. Robert Brennan introduced Childers to Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin, who said, "He's a good man to have. He has the ear of a big section of the English people." Desmond FitzGerald, who handled Sinn Féin's public relations, believed that an English author with many readers would be helpful. FitzGerald and Robert Barton arranged for Childers to meet Michael Collins, an Irish military leader, who then introduced him to Éamon de Valera, the President of Sinn Féin. After recovering from a serious case of influenza at Glendalough, Childers returned to London, where he could work more effectively for Sinn Féin. He reunited with Molly at their flat in Chelsea, while also renting a house in Dublin. Molly was not eager to move to Dublin because she wanted her sons to continue their education in English schools. She believed that staying in London would help her and her husband support the Nationalist cause by influencing public opinion. Eventually, she left their London home of fifteen years and moved to Dublin at the end of 1919.
A month after returning to London, Childers received an invitation to meet Sinn Féin leaders in Dublin. Expecting to be offered an important role, Childers rushed back, but the leaders were either cautious or hostile. Arthur Griffith, in particular, viewed Childers as at best a traitor to Britain or at worst a British spy. Childers was assigned to join the Irish delegation from the as-yet-unrecognised Irish state at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. His task, as he saw it, was to promote the idea of Irish self-determination by reminding delegates of the freedom ideals for which Britain had fought. This effort was unsuccessful, and he returned to London.
In 1920, Childers published Military Rule in Ireland, a pamphlet that included eight articles from the left-wing London Daily News published between March and May 1920. Each article strongly criticized British army actions in Ireland. At the 1921 elections, Childers was elected (without opposition) to the 2nd Dáil as a Sinn Féin representative for the Kildare–Wicklow constituency. He also published the pamphlet Is Ireland a Danger to England? The Strategic Question Examined, which refuted British Prime Minister Lloyd George's claim that an independent Ireland would threaten Britain's security.
In February 1921, Childers became editor of the Irish Bulletin and Director of Publicity for the Dáil after Desmond FitzGerald was arrested. He ran as a Sinn Féin (anti-treaty) candidate in the 1922 general election but did not win his seat.
Irish War of Independence
From 1919, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), officially led by Irish defense minister Cathal Brugha, saw itself as a lawful group following the orders of the Irish parliament, the Dáil Éireann. The IRA started attacking British government buildings in Ireland. These attacks, along with British responses like those by the "Black and Tans," became known as the "Irish War of Independence." The conflict continued until July 1921, when Éamon de Valera, an Irish leader, and British prime minister David Lloyd George agreed to a truce. Childers had a greater impact on the British decision to change their stance than he realized: his reports in the United States helped increase support for the Irish Nationalist cause, which led the U.S. government to pressure the British government.
Treaty negotiations
On 12 July 1921, de Valera and a small group, including Childers as secretary, traveled to London to meet with Lloyd George. De Valera shared Lloyd George’s proposals with the Dáil, which led to an Irish delegation being sent to London on 7 October 1921 for formal talks to negotiate the terms of a treaty. De Valera did not attend, but he strongly supported Childers, who he trusted, to remain as secretary despite opposition. Long discussions continued until an agreement was reached on 5 December 1921.
Childers strongly disagreed with the final version of the agreement, even after changes were made to clauses requiring Irish leaders to take the Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch, which reduced the Crown’s authority in Ireland. As secretary to the delegation (not a full delegate), Childers resisted the British terms but was overruled, despite his efforts to push Irish delegates toward firm positions. After the talks ended, Lloyd George described Childers as "sullen" and disappointed that his "tenacious [and] sinister" attempts to stop the negotiations had failed. Historian Frank Pakenham noted that many British concessions allowing the Irish delegation to sign the agreement were influenced by Childers.
The Anglo-Irish treaty was presented to the Dáil and debated from December 1921 to January 1922. Childers criticized the treaty, claiming that accepting compromises meant Ireland had willingly given up its independence. Arthur Griffith, a delegate who had agreed to Britain’s demands about the Oath of Allegiance, accused Childers of secretly working against the agreement and harming the new state. The Dáil narrowly approved the treaty, with 64 votes in favor and 57 against.
Onset of civil war
The treaty with Britain increased the disagreement between Sinn Féin and the "Irregulars," a group that split off from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and opposed the treaty, led by Cathal Brugha. Ireland began a civil war on June 28, 1922, when government forces used British artillery that had been lent to them to attack the Four Courts. This building was once Ireland's main court building but was then being used as the IRA's military base.
Fugitive
During the civil war, Childers was hiding with the anti-treaty forces in County Cork and County Kerry. Frank O'Connor, the author, worked with Childers during the later part of the war and described Childers's activities in detail. O'Connor wrote that Childers was shunned by the anti-treaty forces and was called "that bloody Englishman" by untrained military officers, who were new recruits from rural areas. These officers ignored Childers's experience as a professional soldier. The leaders of the anti-treaty forces also avoided associating with Childers. His rank was "Staff Captain, Southern Command, IRA." Though the rebel army's headquarters was briefly in Macroom, County Cork, Childers used this time to print southern editions of An Phoblacht, which he renamed Republican War News because it was produced in an area under military control. His secret printing press was moved between safe houses using a pony and trap.
Childers's reports about battles led Kevin O'Higgins, the justice minister in the provisional government, to claim that Childers was the leader of the rebels and even the person who started the civil war by refusing to compromise with England. Frank O'Connor noted that the government wanted to prepare for Childers's execution. The death of Michael Collins in an ambush increased the Free State authorities' desire for revenge. On 28 September 1922, the Dáil passed the Army Emergency Powers Resolution, which gave military leaders special powers and made carrying weapons without a license a crime punishable by death.
In early November 1922, after his printing press was lost in a bog, Childers decided to join Éamon de Valera to help rally the anti-treaty forces. He began a 200-mile (320 km) bicycle journey from Cork to Glendalough, his childhood home, as a stop before meeting de Valera in Dublin. On 10 November, Free State forces, possibly tipped off by an estate worker, entered his home and arrested Childers. His companion, David Robinson, hid in a cellar and escaped capture. When news of Childers's arrest reached Winston Churchill, he expressed satisfaction, calling Childers "the mischief-making, murderous renegade." Later, Churchill's view of Childers softened, and he described him as "a man of distinction, ability, and courage" who had shown bravery during the Cuxhaven raid on New Year's Day 1915.
Trial and appeal
Childers was tried by a military court for having a small Spanish-made "Destroyer" .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol on his person, which broke the Emergency Powers Resolution. The gun had been given to him by Michael Collins before Collins became leader of the pro-treaty Provisional Government. Childers was found guilty by the military court and sentenced to death on November 20, 1922.
Childers appealed the sentence, and Judge Charles O'Connor heard the appeal the next day. The judge said he did not have authority to rule on the case because of the civil war. He stated that the Provisional Government is now the official and actual authority responsible for maintaining peace and using force if needed to stop anyone who tries to overthrow it by violence. He added that Childers challenged the military court's authority and sought protection from the civil court, but the court could not help because the state of war existed partly because of Childers' actions.
Childers' lawyer asked the Supreme Court to review the case. However, before the court accepted the case as something that could be appealed, Childers was executed.
Execution
Childers was killed by a group of soldiers using guns on November 24, 1922, at the Beggars Bush Barracks in Dublin. Before his death, he shook hands with the soldiers who would carry out the execution. He asked his then 16-year-old son, who later became the President of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers, to promise that he would find and shake the hand of every person who had signed Childers's death sentence. His last words to the soldiers were: "Take a step or two forward, lads, it will be easier that way."
Childers's body was buried at Beggars Bush Barracks until 1923, when it was dug up and moved to a special section of Glasnevin Cemetery reserved for republicans.
Legacy
Winston Churchill, who tried to persuade Michael Collins and the Free State government to make the treaty work by ending the rebellion, said, "No man has done more harm or shown more real hatred or tried harder to harm the people of Ireland than this strange person, driven by a deep hatred for the land of his birth." In contrast, Éamon de Valera said, "He died as the noble person he was. Of all the men I have met, I would say he was the most honorable."
On November 23, 2022, the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ aired a television program to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Childers's execution. The program recognized his political and revolutionary work in Ireland and his role as "an active supporter" of the revolution. However, it noted that his fame outside Ireland now mainly comes from his novel The Riddle of the Sands.
Molly Childers wished, upon her death in 1964, that the large collection of papers and documents from her husband's deep involvement in Ireland's struggles in the 1920s be kept locked until 50 years after his death. In 1972, Erskine Hamilton Childers began looking for an official biographer for his father. In 1974, Andrew Boyle, who had previously written biographies of Brendan Bracken and Lord Reith, was asked to study the Childers archive. His biography of Robert Erskine Childers was published in 1977.
In December 2021, An Post, the Irish national post office, released a postage stamp to mark the 100th anniversary of Childers's execution. A "first day cover," featuring an image of the Asgard, was also available.