Results for Erskine Hamilton Childers
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Irish Literature Companion:

[Robert] Erskine Childers

Childers, [Robert] Erskine (1870-1922), novelist and politician. Born in London and educated at Cambridge, he fought in the Boer War in 1899, basing In the Ranks of the City Imperial Volunteers (1900) on it. The Riddle of the Sands (1903) is a fictional account of German preparations to invade England. He used his yacht Asgard to ship in German arms for the Irish Volunteers in 1914. He acted as secretary to the Treaty negotiations [see Anglo-Irish War] but sided with Eamon de Valera. He was sentenced to death for possession of a revolver and executed. His son, Erskine Childers (1905-74), became fourth President of Ireland.

 
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Childers, Robert Erskine
(chĭl'dərz) , 1870–1922, Irish politician and author. Born into a Protestant family, he was a clerk in the House of Commons (1895–1910). Gradually becoming convinced of the need for Irish Home Rule, he resigned to work for it, engaging in gun-running for the Irish Volunteers in 1914. After serving in the British forces during World War I, he represented the Irish cause at Versailles and was a member of the Irish delegation that negotiated the treaty with Britain (1921). By this time he was opposed to anything other than republic status for Ireland and urged rejection of the treaty. He fought in the Irish Republican Army in the civil war that followed the creation of the Irish Free State, and was court-martialed and shot as a traitor in 1922. Childers wrote on Irish politics and on military matters, but his best-known work is Riddle of the Sands (1903, repr. 1971), a spy novel. His son, Erskine Hamilton Childers, 1905–74, became a naturalized Irish citizen and a member of the Dáil in 1938. He held a succession of cabinet posts in the Fianna Fáil governments from 1944 on and in 1973 was elected president of Ireland.

Bibliography

See A. Boyle The Riddle of Erskine Childers (1977).

 
Wikipedia: Erskine Hamilton Childers
Erskine Childers
Erskine Hamilton Childers

In office
25 June, 1973 – 17 November, 1974
Preceded by Éamon de Valera
Succeeded by Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh

Born 11 December 1905(1905--)
London, England
Died 17 November 1974 (aged 68)
Dublin, Ireland
Political party Fianna Fáil
Profession politician

Erskine Hamilton Childers (Irish: Earchta Ó Slatiascaigh; 11 December 190517 November 1974), the son of Robert Erskine Childers (author of the espionage thriller The Riddle of the Sands and a leading Irish republican political figure in his own right), served as the fourth President of Ireland from 1973 until his death in 1974. He was a TD from 1938 until 1973. Childers served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (1951–1954, 1959–1961, and 1966–1969), Minister for Lands (1957–1959), Minister for Transport and Power (1959–1969), and Minister for Health (1969–1973). He was appointed Tánaiste of the Republic of Ireland in 1969.

Biography

Memorial to Erskine Childers in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
Enlarge
Memorial to Erskine Childers in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Childers was born in London. He moved to Ireland after the First World War and took up residence in Wicklow, with his father Robert Erskine Childers, who was in subsequent years to emerge as one of the most prominent and outspoken Irish Republican opponents of the controversial political settlement with Britain that resulted in the establishment of the Irish Free State. The younger Childers was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and Trinity College, Cambridge, hence his striking British upper class accent. In 1922, when Childers was 16, his father was executed, on politically-inspired gun-possession charges, by the Irish Free State. Before his execution, in a spirit of reconciliation, the older Childers obtained a promise from his son to seek out and shake the hand of every man who had signed his father's death warrant. [1]

Childers left Ireland after the death of his father to return to London and to University in Cambridge. After finishing college he worked for a period in a tourism board in Paris, until the then Taoiseach of Ireland Éamon de Valera invited him back to Ireland to work for the Irish Press. He became a naturalised Irish citizen in 1938. A member of Fianna Fáil, he held a number of ministerial posts in the cabinets of Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch, becoming Tánaiste in 1969. Erskine's period as a minister was controversial. One commentator described his ministerial career as "spectacularly unsuccessful". Others praised his willingness to take tough decisions. He was outspoken in his opposition to Charles Haughey in the aftermath of the Arms Crisis, when Haughey and another minister, both having been sacked, were sent for trial amid allegations of a plot to import arms for the Provisional IRA. (Haughey and the other minister, Neil Blaney, were both acquitted.)

In a political upset, Childers was elected the fourth President of Ireland on 30 May, 1973, defeating Tom O'Higgins by 635,867 votes to 578,771. Childers, though 67, was a vibrant, extremely hard-working president who earned universal respect and popularity, in the process making the office of President a highly visible and useful institution. However, he died suddenly of a heart attack in November 1974, while making a public speech to the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin.

Inauguration of Childers as President of Ireland, 25 June 1973.
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Inauguration of Childers as President of Ireland, 25 June 1973.

Childers's state funeral in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, was attended by world leaders including the Vice-President of the United States, Earl Mountbatten of Burma (representing Queen Elizabeth II), the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the Opposition, and presidents and crowned heads of state from Europe and beyond. He was buried in the grounds of Derralossary church in Roundwood, County Wicklow. Initially it was expected that President Childers' popular widow, Rita, would be offered the office of president to continue his work, but it went instead to the former Chief Justice, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh.

Childers was survived by his second wife, Rita, and children from both his marriages. A son, Erskine Childers, by his first wife Ruth Ellen Dow, was a UN civil servant and Secretary General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations. A daughter by 2nd wife Rita, Nessa Childers, is a councillor for the Green Party on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

Political career

Oireachtas
Preceded by
Matthew Davis
(Fianna Fáil)
Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Athlone-Longford
1938–1948
Succeeded by
Constituency abolished
Preceded by
Newly created constituency
Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Longford-Westmeath
1948–1961
Succeeded by
Constituency abolished
Preceded by
Newly created constituency
Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála for Monaghan
1961–1973
Succeeded by
Brendan Toal
(Fine Gael)
Political offices
Preceded by
Conn Ward
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government
1944–1948
Succeeded by
Brendan Corish
Preceded by
James Everett
Minister for Posts & Telegraphs
1951–1954
Succeeded by
Michael Keyes
Preceded by
Joseph Blowick
Minister for Lands
1957–1959
Succeeded by
Micheál Ó Móráin
Preceded by
Minister without portfolio
23 Jul. 1959–27 Jul. 1959
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Newly created office
Minister for Transport & Power
1959–1969
Succeeded by
Brian Lenihan
Preceded by
Joseph Brennan
Minister for Posts & Telegraphs
1966–1969
Succeeded by
Patrick Lalor
Preceded by
Frank Aiken
Tánaiste
1969–1973
Succeeded by
Brendan Corish
Preceded by
Seán Flanagan
Minister for Health
1969–1973
Preceded by
Éamon de Valera
President of Ireland
1973–1974
Succeeded by
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh

Notes


Additional reading

John N. Young, Erskine H. Childers: President of Ireland

See also


 
 

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Copyrights:

Irish Literature Companion. The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Copyright © 1996, 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Erskine Hamilton Childers" Read more

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