Images Dated 7th January 2016

On 26 July 1914 - in the midst of the European pre-war July Crisis - Childers sailed

On 26 July 1914 - in the midst of the European pre-war July Crisis - Childers sailed into Howth in his own yacht, the Asgard, bearing 900 rifles and 14, 000 rounds of ammunition, supplied from Germany by a representative of the Irish Volunteers. The ammunition box is clearly marked Hamburg
Erskine Childers at the wheel, with Gordon Shepherd (?)
Asgard was Childers's last, and most famous, yacht: in June 1914 he used it to smuggle a cargo of 900 elderly but serviceable Mauser Model 1871 rifles and 29, 000 black powder cartridges to the Irish Volunteers movement at the fishing village of Howth, County Dublin (later known as the "Howth gun-running"). It was acquired by the Irish government as a sail training vessel in 1961, stored on dry land in the yard of Kilmainham Gaol in 1979, and finally became a static exhibit at The National Museum of Ireland in 2012.
Topfoto stills library picture library stock archive vintage Ireland Irish Rebellion 1916

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