1. Mary Alden Childers, known as Molly Childers, was an American-born Irish writer and nationalist.
14 Facts About Molly Childers
1. 2.
Molly Childers married fellow Irish writer and nationalist, Erskine Childers.
3.
Physically disabled from the age of three following a skating accident, Molly Childers was educated at home and was not mobile for the first 12 years of her life.
4.
Molly Childers's father, Dr Osgood, was a student of Dr Louis Pasteur and spent time with him in France and Switzerland.
5.
The Osgood's ancestry was directly linked to John Quincy Adams and Anne Hutchinson, and Molly Childers was very proud and outspoken about this connection.
6.
Molly Childers spent years of her childhood inside this library, reading for hours every day; several members of the Osgood family were among the first proprietors of the institution.
7.
In late 1903, Molly Childers was seated next to Erskine Molly Childers at a dinner given by her aunt on Beacon Hill.
8.
Molly Childers raised funds for them alongside her sister and mother.
9.
Molly Childers was awarded the Medaille de la Reine Elisabeth from Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
10.
From 1916 to 1918, Molly Childers was honorary secretary of the Chelsea War Refugees Fund.
11.
Molly Childers was central to the July 1914 Irish Volunteers Howth gun-running on her and her husband's yacht Asgard.
12.
The author noted circumstantial evidence which, in his opinion, suggested that Molly Childers might have been the spy, including the assertion that she had not shared her husband's enthusiasm for Irish independence and the person's use of American phraseology.
13.
Molly Childers proposed that Childers had "the qualities to carry off such a dangerous role" and that she "consistently displayed intelligence, courage, decisiveness and single-minded determination", but acknowledged that there was no conclusive evidence.
14.
Historian Peter Hart said Foy's theory "does seem to fit the facts as presented", but noted that "all the other facts we know about thoroughly republican Molly Childers suggest that it simply cannot have been true, and there are other good reasons to be cautious".