Erskine Childers

a.k.a. Robert Erskine Childers

Author Code: EECX

Childers served as a clerk in the House of Commons from 1895 to 1910. He took part briefly in the Boer War and also served in the British Army in the First World War as an intelligence and aerial-reconnaissance officer. He was fervantly against British rule in Ireland, and after the war supported an independent Ireland. He was elected to the Irish Assembly in 1921 and was subsequently named minister of propaganda. Childers joined the Irish Republican Army after his disillusionment with the Free State forces' concessions to the British in the December 1921 treaty. He was subsequently captured by the Free State forces, tried on a charge of illegally possessing a firearm, and executed by firing squad. His only true literary contribution was Riddle of the Sands (1903), a very popular spy story at the time.