This radio documentary is named
“Solving The Riddle of Erskine Childers - From Extreme Supporter Of The British Empire To Extreme Irish Republican”


Theme of documentary-
Of all the colourful people involved in the Irish revolutionary struggle from 1913 to 1923, none perhaps travels a further distance, politically speaking, than Erskine Childers. He’s the one who ultimately makes the longest political journey, from extreme supporter of the British Empire in his early life to a die-hard Irish Republican in later years. Born into a family of impeccable British Empire pedigree and writing the bestseller 1903 spy book “The Riddle of the Sands”, which promoted a British Empire worldview- Childers bizarrely threw in his lot with the Irish freedom cause from 1908 onwards, helping to organise the famous Howth gun running expedition in 1914 and becoming chief propagandist for the Irish Republican government from 1919 onwards, before being eventually executed as an Anti-Treaty Republican in 1922.
This 50-minute radio documentary throws light on this often-misunderstood figure in Irish history, investigating in particular what caused his conversion from British imperialist to Irish Republican. Ultimately this documentary offers an answer to this “riddle”, showing that it was Childers’s idealism which drove him in life. In the latter portion of his life he’d lost his old idealism for empire and replaced it with Irish freedom.

* All dramatic narrations by Mark Leslie of Martello Media.

** This 50-minute radio documentary is to be downloaded for non-profit purposes only, in adherence with the universal truth- “What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others remains. It is immortal.”

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