EXIT OF CHILDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18294, 10 January 1923, Page 9

EXIT OF CHILDERS.

EXECUTION AT DUBLIN.

DEATH FACED CALMLY.

TELLS HIS OWN LIFE STORY.

"I am at peace with all the world. I bear no grudge against anyone, and I trust no one bears any against me." These are reported to be the last words of Erskine Childers before he was taken out to execution. His friend, the Rev. H. Waller, Protestant Dean of Kildare, who was with him when he died, pays him this tribute: "He died like the brave man he was."

The execution took place at Beggars Bush Barracks, Dublin. "I arrived at the barracks at 6.30," said the dean. "Mr. Childers was confined in the guardroom and had not breakfasted. I sat with him as he ate his meal, and he was quit© calm and resigned— even cheerful.

"Tho execution was fixed for seven o'clock, but as it was then dark it was not until some time later that he was taken out.

"They blindfolded him with a handkerchief. He made no protest, although I think he .would have preferred his eyes to be free. His hands were tied behind his back, but so lightly that he could easily have released them.

"Ho marched out with a steady step, head held high, to a spot behind the main building, and the firing squad lined tip in front of him.

"Before I heard the report of the rifles he had fallen. A military doctor' examined the body and certified death, and] the remains were enclosed in a coffin and carried to a grave already prepared near by.

Impressive Fortitude,

"I read the burial service—he was a Protestant—rand when it was all oyer an officer said to me, 'That was a. brave man.' The calmness and fortitude with which he met death were very impressive.

"He read a book of devotion -which has since been forwarded to Mrs. Childers," said the dean. "I visited him several times, and throughout he had no bitterness, and avoided any reference to politics. He spoke in praise of the kindness and consideration which his guards showed him." On the day of his trial Childers said: "Whether I am to die or to live, it must help Ireland. The way is clear before me. I am serene." In a statement which he made to the military Court which tried him, Childers told his life story. On returning to his cell after the trial he wrote down from memory the statement he had made. "I am by birth, domicile, and deliberate choice of * citizenship an Irishman," he declared. "Both my parents having died when I was young, from the age of 13 I was brought up at Glendalough House, Annamo e. County Wicklow.

Unionist as Young Man.

"As a young man T had been a Unionist, but the experience of the South African war, in which I served for 10 months as a volunteer, made mo a Liberal and a Nationalist. "In warm sympathy with the Irish Volunteers I joined the small committee formed in May, 1914,. to supply them with arms, and myself, with my wife and one or two friends, ran a cargo of guns into Howth in July. "Then came the European war. Like thousands of Irish Nationalists I was misled by the idea of a war for small nations, and joined the British Naval Air Service, leaving at the end of the war with the rank of major. "The bulk of my work, consisted of active service, flying in seaplanes as an observer, and an intelligence officer in the North Sea, Dardanelles, and Egypt, and on the Belgian coast "On this substratum of fact has been built the abominable legend that I was a secret service spy, and that it was in •some such capacity as that I have done my political work in Ireland.

I Chose tho Irish Republic. ."The collapse of the Irish Convention, on the secretariat of which I was employed, and the attempt to enforce conscription convinced me that Home Rule was dead, and that a revolution founded on the rising of 1916 was inevitable and necessary. "With the formal establishment of the Republic in 1919 it became necessary for people like myself of mixed birth to choose our citizenship once and for all. ."I chose that of the Irish Republic. I threw myself into the work of the Republic movement, and after a year took up my permanent residence, with my wife and family, in Dublin."

' "A Strong Lino." | The statement goes on to outline the j missions Childers undertook, and to claim that "I can at least say that I was faith- [ ful to all the many trusts reposed in me." After a reference to his part in the interviews with Mr. Lloyd George, Childers continues: — "I took a strong line from the first against the British Dominion scheme, and in so doing came for the first time in three years into conflict with Republican colleagues and comrades. I was bound by honour., conscience, and principle to oppose the Treaty by speech, writing,, and action, both in peace and, when it came to the disastrous point, in war, for we hold that, a 'nation has no right to surrender 'its 'declared and established independence, and that even a minority has a right to resist that surrender in arms. "I fought and worked for a sacred principle, the loyalty of the nation to its declared independence and repudiation of anv voluntary surrender to conquest and inclusion in the British Empire. "That is the faith of my comrades, my leaders, and myself. "Some day we shall be justified when the nation forgets its weakness and _ revertb.to the ancient and holy traditions which we are preserving in our struggle, and may God hasten the day of reunion among us all under the honoured flag of the Republic."