Erskine Hamilton Childers

Bust of Erskine Hamilton Childers

Erskine Hamilton Childers (born December 11, 1905 in London , † November 17, 1974 in Dublin ), son of the writer Robert Erskine Childers , who was executed in the Irish Civil War , was the fourth President of Ireland ( Irish : Uachtarán na hÉireann ) from 1973 to his Death in 1974.

Life

After completing his studies at Cambridge University , Childers, who grew up in Great Britain, worked for a tourism office in Paris and then worked as a press officer in Dublin. In 1925 he married Ruth Ellen Dow, with whom he had five children. In 1938 he received Irish citizenship and became a member of Parliament for the Fianna Fáil . After his first wife died in 1950, the Anglican Childers married Rita Dudley a second time in 1952, resulting in another daughter, Nessa .

Childers headed various ministries: Minister for Posts & Telegraphs 1951–1954, 1959–1961 and 1966–1969, Minister for Lands 1957–1959, Minister for Transport & Power 1959–1969 and Minister for Health 1969–1973. In 1969 he was appointed Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister). In 1973 he won the election for President of Ireland against his competitor Tom O'Higgins , the candidate of Fine Gael . Childers died of a heart attack in office.

Originally, all parties secretly agreed to nominate his widow Rita Childers as his successor; but before this was announced, and even before she was told, a misunderstanding broke the agreement. The half-deaf Fine Gael Secretary Tom O'Donnell misunderstood a journalist's question about the alleged nomination of Mrs. Childers. He thought the journalist already knew about the nomination and confirmed that Rita Childers would become the new President of Ireland. The opposition, believing that the government had orchestrated the mess and wanted to take political advantage of it, withdrew from the deal.

literature

• Erskine Childers , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 04/1975 of January 13, 1975, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)

Web links

• Official biography of Childers , engl.