Erskine Childers

[Editor’s note: This review by Desmond Greaves of the book, “Damned Englishman: A study of Erskine Childers”, by Tom Cox (Exposition Press, Hicksville, New York, 374 pp, $10), was carried in the October 1975 issue of the “Irish Democrat” – the paper’s editor using his regular pseudonym “Feicreanach”. The review carried the heading below.]

Childers from the outside

The title of this book is derived, of course, from the notorious speech in the second Dail, in which Arthur Griffith refused to answer Childers’s questions about the disestablishment of the Republic over which Griffith was presiding.

It is the first attempt at a full-length biography of Erskine Childers. It is the product of many years’ work by an able and cultured American-Irish writer whose own connection with the national movement is sufficient guarantee of its irreproachable republican attitude.

Unfortunately, it was produced under a difficulty that the author did not deserve. He did not apparently have full access to the family records, and the result is that the book is the story of Childers seen from the outside. The author could not get inside his skin because he had not available the material that would enable him to do so.

What he has done without this advantage does him the utmost credit. It also does Childers credit. But it leaves the task of producing the definitive biography to somebody in the future. And it is hard not to feel that this is too bad, as Mr Cox was the man to have done it.

The story as it unfolds is the story of the Irish revolution, the personal interest centring on Childers rather than, for example, on De Valera Griffith or Collins.

At the same time a mass of detailed information about Childers has been painstakingly gathered together. How many of us realised, for example, that Childers was a contemporary of Bertrand Russell at Cambridge, and the two, together with Edward Marsh, made a joint excursion into North Wales?

Most readers will probably find the chapter on the “treaty” negotiations the most impressive.

But there are useful insights throughout. Cox’s description of the origin of the antagonism of Griffith (page 134) undoubtedly hits the nail on the head. Griffith was resentful of the Johnny-come-lately who was being acclaimed the expert in his chosen field, but did not realise that he himself, and his right-wing policies, were to blame.

The author comments on the appearance of the mystery man John Chartres, and one regrets that he did not pursue this enigmatic figure further. That he was there to balance Childers one need not doubt. Mr Cox is surely right in stressing the important role of the former anti- Parnellite Tim Healy, who, as we all know, got his reward, and did not wait to go to heaven for it. He assisted Lloyd George in ensnaring Griffith in his intrigues. There is also due attention given to the lesser characters on the English side who suddenly discovered an intense interest in Ireland when English imperialism wanted a political job done. Then as now.

It must however be said that some aspects of Mr Cox’s literary style cause unnecessary irritation. He never seems sure of his tenses. There are passages in which the story is told in the present. But from time to time, and unfortunately too many times, the future is from the womb of history untimely ripped, as for example, “Nine million would perish in the hostilities” and “The Irish Parliamentary Party had opposed and now would refuse cooperation”, or “He was given the death sentence which subsequently however would be commuted.” The cumulative effect of this technique is that the reader feels that nothing ever happens properly. Events yesterday, events tomorrow. Then suddenly everything today. A historian should observe stricter chronology.

There are also smaller lapses. Of fact, for example. Mellows was thirty not twenty-seven when he died. But there are not many glaring errors of fact. Solecisms, yes – Lloyd George “diaried”; Childers had a “kinsman ancestor” (what ancestor is not a kinsman?). Rather too much “envisioning” and such usages as “Assertedly, he had his tiny automatic in his hand.” The assertion that he had the automatic was only made afterwards, and by his enemies. This type of misuse of adverbs is too common these days and we would have preferred that Mr Cox had avoided it.

Still, we must not cavil too much. This is on the whole a racy, readable narrative, and a very welcome addition to the literature of Ireland’s last revolutionary period.