At the end of his convalescence Childers returned to Molly at the Chelsea flat, but a month later he received an invitation to meet the Sinn Féin leadership in Dublin. Anticipating an offer of a major role, Childers hurried to Dublin but, apart from Collins, he found the Irish leadership wary, or even hostile. Arthur Griffith, in particular, considered him as at best a renegade and traitor to Britain, or at worst as a British spy. He was appointed to join the Irish delegation from the as-yet-unrecognised Irish State to the Paris Peace Conference. This unpromising undertaking, as Childers saw it, was intended to advance the cause of Irish self-rule by reminding official representatives at the conference of the ideals of freedom for which Britain had gone to war. In this they were unsuccessful, and Childers returned once again to London. He rented a house in Dublin, but Molly was reluctant to join him: mindful of her sons' education, and believing that she and her husband could best serve the cause by influencing opinion in London. She gave up their London home of fifteen years to settle in Dublin, at the end of 1919.