ERSKINE HAMILTON CHILDERS

'Erskine Hamilton Childers' (; 11 December 1905 – 17 November 1974), the son of Robert Erskine Childers (author of ''The Riddle of the Sands''), 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.

Contents

Biography

Political career

Additional reading

See also

Biography

Childers was born in London. He move to Ireland however after the First World War and took up residence in Wicklow, with his father Robert Erskine Childers. He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and Trinity College, Cambridge, hence his striking British upper class accent. When Childers was 16 his father was executed by the newly formed Irish free state. Childers left Ireland after the death of his father to return to London and 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.
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

Additional reading

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

See also

★ List of people on stamps of Ireland