Untimely death of President Childers

18 November 1974

According to the 1937 constitution, Ireland’s first President was the Protestant Dr. It was Douglas Hyde. Death robbed Ireland of its fourth president and another Protestant, Mr. Erskine Childers, son of the Republican leader executed during the Civil War.

President Childers, whose untimely death was mourned throughout Ireland, worked hard during his tragically short term in office to realize his presidential ideal and deliver the mandate to the people. His intention was for the office to embrace the entire community, not just in spirit but in reality. He was extremely successful at this.

From the beginning of his public career, to which he brought steadfast devotion and a high standard of integrity, particularly as a minister in several Fianna Fail governments, he refused to be a prisoner of historical traditions from which he never departed. He was a Republican, yes. His father had been foolishly executed during the turmoil of the Civil War. If he was troubled by the same difficulties experienced by other Treaty sons or anti-Treaty fathers, young Erskine Childers refused to harbor hostility.

As brave and high-minded as his father, he preferred the justice of creating a spirit of reconciliation in a society that had been cruelly and inexorably divided for many years after 1922.

From the beginning, President Childers concentrated his efforts on the recovery and preservation of Ireland’s cultural heritage for a new generation for whom the Civil War and its aftermath were mere passages in the history books.

He called for patience and understanding in political life; and although he was a missionary for Fianna Fail, his speeches and actions inside and outside Dail Eireann were always marked by a pattern of behavior that won him the respect and affection of political friend and foe.

As a figure above politics, he felt the urge to urgently voice his concerns about healing the divisions in Ireland. There was no mistake in belief that this healing could be achieved. In his short time as president, he noted these and other high ideals that needed to be copied and improved.

Ireland News Editorial containing the obituary of Erskine Childers, the fourth President of Ireland, who died suddenly the previous day after less than 18 months in office.