Erskine Childers (author)

Erskine Childers DSC
Childers in uniform of the CIV, 1899
Teachta Dála
In office May 1921 – June 1922
Constituency	Kildare–Wicklow
Personal details
Born	Robert Erskine Childers (1870-06-25)25 June 1870 Mayfair, London, England
Died	24 November 1922(1922-11-24) (aged 52) Beggars Bush Barracks, Dublin, Ireland
Cause of death	Execution by firing squad
Resting place	Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Sinn Féin
Spouse	Mary Alden Osgood ​ (m. 1904)​
Children	3, including Erskine Hamilton
Parent	Robert Caesar Childers (father)
Relatives	Erskine Barton Childers (grandson) Nessa Childers (granddaughter) Hugh Childers (cousin) Robert Barton (cousin)
Profession	Soldier journalist politician novelist
Known for	Author of The Riddle of the Sands Irish nationalist executed by the Provisional Government of Ireland for the illegal possession of a pistol

Robert Erskine Childers DSC (25 June 1870 – 24 November 1922), usually known as Erskine Childers (/ˈɜːrskɪn ˈtʃɪldərz/^[1]), was an English-born Irish nationalist who established himself as a writer with accounts of the Second Boer War, the novel The Riddle of the Sands about German preparations for a sea-borne invasion of England, and proposals for achieving Irish independence.

As a firm believer in the British Empire, Childers served as a volunteer in the army expeditionary force in the Second Boer War in South Africa, but his experiences there began a gradual process of disillusionment with British imperialism. He was adopted as a candidate in British parliamentary elections, standing for the Liberal Party at a time when the party supported a treaty to establish Irish home rule, but he later became an advocate of Irish republicanism and the severance of all ties with Britain. On behalf of the Irish Volunteers, he smuggled guns into Ireland later used against British soldiers in the Easter Rebellion. He had a significant role in the negotiations between Ireland and Britain that culminated in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but was elected as an anti-Treaty member of the first Irish parliament. He sought an active role in the Irish Civil War (over the acceptance of the terms of the treaty) that followed and was executed by the Irish Free State.

As an author, his most significant work was the novel The Riddle of the Sands, published eleven years before the start of the First World War. Its depiction of a secret German invasion fleet directed against England influenced Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, into strengthening the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy. On the outbreak of the First World War Churchill was instrumental in calling Childers for service in the Royal Navy, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Childers was the son of British Orientalist scholar Robert Caesar Childers, the father of the fourth president of Ireland Erskine Hamilton Childers, the cousin of British politician Hugh Childers and of Irish nationalist Robert Barton, and the grandfather of the writer and diplomat Erskine Barton Childers and of the former MEP Nessa Childers.