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25/11/22
MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS
EXECUTED.
THE OFFICIAL STATEMENT.
PROTESTANT CLERGYMAN
WITH HIM AT THE END.
HOW LONDON HEARD THE NEWS.
MR. Erskine Childers was executed yesterday morning, but no details beyond the bare official announcement given below are available. The news caused some excitement in London, but, according to the Central News Correspondent, it aroused little feeling in the Lobby of the House of Commons. Members, he says, are satisfied that the Free State Government knows its business best, and they rather admire the Government for acting with all the severity necessary to make its will effective.
The following official report was issued from Army Headquarters:—
OFFICIAL.
Mr. Erskine Childers was tried by a Military Court at Portobello Barrack, Dublin, on November 17th, 1922, and charged with having possession, without proper authority, of an automatic pistol when apprehended by a party of national forces on November 10th, at Annamoe House, Co. Wicklow.
The accused was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The finding and sentence was duly confirmed, and the execution was carried out this morning at 7 o'clock.
We have received from the party which Mr. Erskine Childers served a statement which says that at 9.45 yesterday morning Mrs. Childers was officially informed that her husband had been executed at 7 o'clock. This was the first notification which she received that the execution was fixed for yesterday morning. Mr. Childers was first told to prepare for execution on Monday morning last. The statement adds that he applied to see the Rev. Dr. Browne, Maynooth, or Father Albert, and that, when this request was refused, he asked to see a Protestant clergyman whom he had known as a boy. This clergyman was brought to him, and was with him when he died.
ERSKINE CHILDERS.
EVENTFUL AND VARIED
CAREER.
A CHARACTER SKETCH.
By NICHEVO.
That last night at Earlsfort Terrace ten months ago never will be forgotten by those who witnessed the scenes which followed the passing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Arthur Griffith, flushed to the brows, was nearly bursting with suppressed excitement. Michael Collins was dashing his nervous hand through his shock of jet-black hair, while on the other side of the room Harry Boland was crying like a child, and Cathal Brugha was biting his lips in bitter disappointment.
A few seats away from Brugha, Erskine Childers was sitting. His face was drawn and haggard. Bloodless lips were parched, and twitched in painful grief. But this strange man never moved in his place. Like Arthur Griffith, he knew how to master his emotions.
And now they all are dead. Griffith died of worry, Collins and Brugha fell in the beat of the light, Boland was killed in a scuffle at Ekorries, and Childers faced the firing party yesterday at dawn.
THE GREAT TRAGEDY.
Of all the many men who have met their deaths in the Irish political arena, none was more remarkable type than Erskine Childers. Brilliantly clever, he might have attained success in almost any walk of life.
He was an admirable Civil Servant, an excellent writer—who has not revelled in "The Riddle of the Sands"—and a distinguished soldier whose work in the Great War was very valuable to the British cause.
Yet he sacrificed everything for the wild ideal of a dream. Friends, wealth, career, society he threw contemptuously aside to die a rebel's death at dawn. There is tragedy in Erskine Childers's passing.
He was a queer mixture of kindliness and grimmers. In his personal relations he was polished and snave, helpful to others, and always ready to give the under-dog a lifting hand. In politics he was ruthless and unhanding. His mind was imprisoned in a mesh of pitfallers logic from which it could not escape.
NEVER COMPROMISED.
History will not excuse him for the part which he has played in the hurly-burly of politics during the past twelve months.
THE LATE MR. ERSKINE CHILDERS.
But he would not recognise defeat, and when the standard of revolt was raised he joined the insurgent Army, despite his two and fifty years. By this time he was broken completely in health.
One had only to look at him to see that he was a physical wreck. The ardour of fanaticism, however, makes men do strange things, and Erskine Childers burnt his boats. He took to the hills in the South of Ireland, where he remained with Luam Lynch and his associates until fate sent him back to his cousin's house in County Wicklow. Here he was captured with an automatic pistol in his pocket. Yesterday he paid the price.