On November 24, 1922, Erskine Childers, a prominent republican and author, was executed by the Irish Free State for possession of a pistol, which was in violation of the Emergency Powers Act. Childers, who had been a key figure in the Howth gun-running and a staunch opponent of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, was a martyr for the republican cause. His execution was a controversial act that deepened the divisions of the Civil War.

The execution of Erskine Childers is a subject of mourning in republican poetry, with writers condemning the execution as an act of political vengeance. Childers, who was a writer himself, became a symbol of the literary and political ideals of the republic. His death is often contrasted with the achievements of the Irish Free State, creating a sense of loss that pervades the poetry of the period.