Foreign Volunteers in the Irish War of Independence?

Thread is a couple of months old, but I just want to correct this "Englishman" and "foreign" trope about Childers, which is not accurate.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Depends on what you mean by "foreign". Erskine Childers and Madame Despard leap at once to mind; they had some Irish ancestry but were basically English by birth, upbrininging and culture.

Well, apart from the fact that he was brought up in Wicklow from the age of six. (He was sent off to boarding school in England later, but always regarded himself as Irish.)

As I understand it, the Bartons (his mother's family, who brought him up) were Wicklow unionist anti-Home-Rulers; Childers and his contemporary Barton cousins, in line with many Irish people of their generation, gradually realised that being part of the British Empire wasn't a great thing for Ireland. In Childers' case this came about first in the Boer War, when he fought on the British side; he was disillusioned by the British-run concentration camps and the dishonourable methods.

He was central to the Howth Gun-Running, his and his wife's boat Asgard being used to bring in around half of the guns from the cargo ship off the coast; the other half had been brought in at Kilcoole by Tom and Laurence Kettle and others the day before, as far as I remember.

He went on to fight (for the British Empire) in the Great War, where he performed bravely and was decorated for his service.

After the war he was struck down by the Spanish Flu that killed millions all over the world.

When he returned to Ireland he was roped in to represent the newly-declared republic at the Paris Peace Conference - a doomed effort at which he did his best, but failed to find a seat at a table full of ambitious countries elbowing for power in the vacuum left by the defeat of Germany and destruction of the Ottoman Empire.

He was elected as a TD in the 1921 Second Dáil, and continued to be called on whenever tricky negotiations were in question. When the negotiators were chosen for Treaty negotiations, Kevin O'Higgins was asked to be secretary; he was about to get married and asked Childers to take his place, which Childers did.

When the split over this treaty happened, Childers took the Republican side. He had been director of publicity for the new State; he continued this work, but now writing for the Republicans.

Free State troops burst into the Barton house, Childers' childhood home, and found Childers there; they said that he came from his bedroom brandishing a pistol, which he cocked, and the housekeeper threw herself in front of him with arms outstretched and said "You won't shoot Mr Childers".

A law had been rushed through some days before that anyone carrying arms could be executed; four boys were killed by firing squads a couple of days before Childers. He was tried in a secret trial - not even his lawyer's name could be known; his lawyer applied for habeus corpus, and while this application was still in process, Childers was executed. He died bravely, after shaking the hands of his firing squad and forgiving them.