Robert Erskine Childers

Irish nationalist and author

Robert Erskine Childers DSC (25 June 1870 – 24 November 1922), usually known as Erskine Childers (/'??rsk?n 't??ld?rz/), was an English-born Irish writer, politician, and militant.

His works included the influential novel The Riddle of the Sands. Starting as an ardent Unionist, he later became a supporter of Irish Republicanism and smuggled guns into Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard.

He was executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War. He was the son of British Orientalist scholar Robert Caesar Childers; the cousin of Hugh Childers and Robert Barton; and the father of the fourth President of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers.