Childers, (Robert) Erskine

English civil servant and writer, Irish republican, author of the spy novel The Riddle of the Sands (1903).

A Londoner by birth and educated at Haileybury and Cambridge, Childers served as Clerk of the House of Commons, 1895–1910, and published Riddle of the Sands in 1903. He converted to Irish home rule in 1908, and it was aboard his yacht the Asgard that arms were landed for the Irish Volunteers in 1914. He served with the Royal Navy Air Services from 1914–19, yet his support for home rule hardened into a severe republicanism. He was appointed director of publicity for the IRA in 1919 and, elected to the Dáil (then the unofficial republican parliament) in 1921, became its minister for propaganda. Childers served as first secretary to the Irish delegation in negotiations with the British government in 1921, but opposed the treaty that his colleagues agreed with the British. He fought with the republicans in the 1922 civil war, and was captured, court-martialled and executed by the Free State government.