The riddle of Erskine Childers

BORN in London, Erskine Childers spent part of his childhood in Glendalough, went to school in England, and worked as a Committee Clerk in the House of Commons. He served voluntarily in the Boer War, wrote a fine adventure story (The Riddle of the Sands), devoted himself to British politics and the Imperial cause.

Long interested in Ireland's fight for Home Rule, he famously, ran guns to Howth on the eve of the first World War, took a large part in bringing about the unexpected 1921 Truce, played a crucial role in the Treaty talks, found himself on the wrong side in the Civil War and was executed by a Free State firing squad in Beggars Bush Barracks in 1922.

The single charge was possession of an automatic pistol, a present from Michael Collins. Childers was 52.

Who was this unusual man? Lord Longford describes him as the last great Anglo Irishman, which seems a bit premature. Churchill expressed satisfaction at the arrest of "the mischief making, murderous renegade Erskine Childers". John Buchan's view was that "no revolution ever produced a nobler and purer spirit".

If Jim Ring's sympathetic account of his life does not fully succeed in providing the "coherent psychological portrait" attempted, it is still a highly readable biography, it marshals its facts superbly and is excellent on contextual background and detail.

Parallells in the characters of Childers and of Davies, hero of The Riddle of the Sands, are easily draw both come across as earnest, sincere, resourceful, skilled and by implication rather naive and trusting. The desire for Boys Own style adventure was part of Childers's makeup. Romance was important, too, but the romance of duty, sacrifice, noble causes, high ideals.

There was something of Padraig Pearse in Childers, nobility and fearlessness combined with an unenviable talent for exasperating others. But although we are told early on that Pearse "figured prominently" in Childers's story, he is hardly mentioned. The author does note that a diary entry by Childers suggests he was in sympathy with Pearse's notorious vision of a nation's bloodshed as a "cleansing and satisfying" thing.

Childers's childhood was traumatic. His father died of tuberculosis at 36, when Erskine was just six. His mother, also infected, was immediately confined to a home for incurables, where she died seven years later without ever having seen her five children again.

Ring speculates reasonably that the young Childers first became withdrawn, then came to regard emotional dependence and commitment as a vice "This trait seems in some ways to have led to his final tragedy."

He married into a distinguished Boston family, the Osgoods (wealthy, too their wedding present to Erskine and Molly was the 44 foot custom built Asgard). At one stage during the engagement it appears he was going to leave her, believing the "higher path" was to reject the joy she offered. Rather typical. Molly was everything to him, or as much as many woman could be, but the sparse account of family life suggests work came first.

His political development is well observed and documented, as is the interest in boats and boatsmanship which gives so much charm to The Riddle. Like Childers, the author has a passion for small boats (medium size yachts, as the layman sees it) and this comes through in the writing, to fine effect.

There are enchanting accounts of their many trips in the Asgard, and indeed of their regular visits to "Glan", the Glendalough estate of his Irish aunt Agnes.

This is a fine book, and beautifully produced. The dust jacket reproduces a charming picture in the possession of Trinity College Dublin, showing Childers and Molly in a small sailboat in Flensburg in 1906 he was 36, not long married, and maybe never happier. {CORRECTION} 96051400003