GENUINE REPUBLICAN values such as leadership, sacrifice and selflessness need to be reignited in modern politics, MEP Nessa Childers said yesterday as she opened an exhibition dedicated to her grandfather Robert Erskine Childers.
Ms Childers last night posed for photographs in the cell occupied by her grandfather in Wicklow Gaol to launch the exhibition Robert Erskine Childers: A Very English Irishman at the Gaol.
“We should also reflect on genuine republican values that my grandfather and others represented and the need to reignite them in national politics today,” she said.
“We need more than ever the qualities of leadership, sacrifice and selflessness that these patriots represented,” the Labour MP continued.
Ms Childers said she was delighted to see the exhibition take place as it “re-emphasised the connections between the Childers family and Wicklow”.
On November 10th, 1922, Robert Erskine Childers was arrested at Glendalough House for the possession of an automatic pistol. The pistol had been a gift from Michael Collins when the two men had been on the same side before Collins became head of the pro-treaty government.
Childers was imprisoned at Wicklow Gaol, where he was held overnight.
The following day he was sent to Dublin for trial and execution.
He was executed by firing squad on the November 24th, 1922.