Roger Casement (1864–1916) was born near Dublin to a Protestant father & Catholic mother! After his parents’ early deaths, he spent his childhood with Protestant relations and was raised as an Anglo-Irish Protestant among the Ulster landed gentry; he was not a starving revolutionary.
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He joined Elder Dempster Shipping Line Liverpool as a steward and later became British consul in the Congo. In this time Casement mixed loyalty to the British Empire with a desire to expose the atrocities of the brutal Belgian rule in the Congo. His consular duties took him to Portuguese East Africa then back to the Congo, where in 1903 he was asked to report on allegations of widespread atrocities under the personal rule of King Leopold of the Belgians. His passionate reports of brutal forced labour in the upper Congo’s rubber industry led to a governmental White Paper in 1904. It caused outrage, leading to radical changes in the Congo, which was formally annexed as a Belgian colony.
Casement then lived in Britain where he joined forces with anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements and helped to establish the Congo Reform Association. In 1906 he returned to work as the British consul in Brasil, where he saw more barbarity against local populations. Writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who befriended Casement in London in 1910, wrote The Crime of the Congo, and pledged his support for Casement’s campaigns against South America atrocities.
When Casement returned to South America, he wrote further reports on the brutal practices of Peruvian Amazon Co, a British-registered rubber company working among the Indians. Again there was a media furore! Awarded a knighthood, Sir Roger became wholly disillusioned with his consular role; he wished to retire and to explore his Ibutrish identity.
Casement backed the Irish Volunteer Force which promoted Home Rule, so he initiated gun running into a Dublin port in July 1914. Becoming increasingly militant, he travelled to the USA and Germany during the Great War, buying arms and recruiting among Irish prisoners of war for an Irish Brigade to be part of an anti-British insurrection! His politics had always been radical, but now during the Great War, his negotiations with Germany were unbelievably dangerous.
All Sir Roger’s movements abroad were being tracked by the British Secret Services. It was discovered that when he went to Germany via Norway in 1914-6, he got poor responses from both the German high command and Irish prisoners of war. Convinced that an uprising in Ireland now had no chance of success, Casement went home in a German submarine and was captured in Kerry in Ap 1916.
Then Casement was taken to London for trial in July 1916. Old documents were found in his luggage by officers from Britain’s Special Branch under Basil Thomson, a Scotland Yard commissioner. One document was Casement’s legitimate business as a British agent in Brasil from 1910, while 5 were personal diaries that contained graphic details of his homosexual affairs in Africa & South America.
Post-arrest, the British government used the Black Diaries unscrupulously, to drum up support for a treason conviction. Knowing how important it was to tarnish Casement’s name, Basil Thomson sent the documents to prominent British and American decision-makers, including the American Ambassador in London.
The trial for his role in Ireland’s Easter Rising was horrible. Irishman George Duffy was approached to become Casement’s solicitor, but the partners in his leading London law firm clarified that he'd have to resign if he accepted. As no other London barrister was found to defend Casement, Gavan Duffy had to look to his brother-in-law A.M. Sullivan. Both these lawyers had long histories of involvement in Irish nationalism, though they loathed the 1916 revolutionaries’ violence. Worse, the prosecution team was led by the very pro-Unionist lawyer F.E Smith. And the case was heard before another ardent Unionist, Chief Justice Lord Reading!
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Irish President Eamon de Valera speaking at the funeral of Irish nationalist Roger Casement
Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, 1965.
Sir Roger Casement at trial,
London, July 1916
He joined Elder Dempster Shipping Line Liverpool as a steward and later became British consul in the Congo. In this time Casement mixed loyalty to the British Empire with a desire to expose the atrocities of the brutal Belgian rule in the Congo. His consular duties took him to Portuguese East Africa then back to the Congo, where in 1903 he was asked to report on allegations of widespread atrocities under the personal rule of King Leopold of the Belgians. His passionate reports of brutal forced labour in the upper Congo’s rubber industry led to a governmental White Paper in 1904. It caused outrage, leading to radical changes in the Congo, which was formally annexed as a Belgian colony.
Casement then lived in Britain where he joined forces with anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements and helped to establish the Congo Reform Association. In 1906 he returned to work as the British consul in Brasil, where he saw more barbarity against local populations. Writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who befriended Casement in London in 1910, wrote The Crime of the Congo, and pledged his support for Casement’s campaigns against South America atrocities.
When Casement returned to South America, he wrote further reports on the brutal practices of Peruvian Amazon Co, a British-registered rubber company working among the Indians. Again there was a media furore! Awarded a knighthood, Sir Roger became wholly disillusioned with his consular role; he wished to retire and to explore his Ibutrish identity.
Casement backed the Irish Volunteer Force which promoted Home Rule, so he initiated gun running into a Dublin port in July 1914. Becoming increasingly militant, he travelled to the USA and Germany during the Great War, buying arms and recruiting among Irish prisoners of war for an Irish Brigade to be part of an anti-British insurrection! His politics had always been radical, but now during the Great War, his negotiations with Germany were unbelievably dangerous.
All Sir Roger’s movements abroad were being tracked by the British Secret Services. It was discovered that when he went to Germany via Norway in 1914-6, he got poor responses from both the German high command and Irish prisoners of war. Convinced that an uprising in Ireland now had no chance of success, Casement went home in a German submarine and was captured in Kerry in Ap 1916.
Then Casement was taken to London for trial in July 1916. Old documents were found in his luggage by officers from Britain’s Special Branch under Basil Thomson, a Scotland Yard commissioner. One document was Casement’s legitimate business as a British agent in Brasil from 1910, while 5 were personal diaries that contained graphic details of his homosexual affairs in Africa & South America.
Post-arrest, the British government used the Black Diaries unscrupulously, to drum up support for a treason conviction. Knowing how important it was to tarnish Casement’s name, Basil Thomson sent the documents to prominent British and American decision-makers, including the American Ambassador in London.
The trial for his role in Ireland’s Easter Rising was horrible. Irishman George Duffy was approached to become Casement’s solicitor, but the partners in his leading London law firm clarified that he'd have to resign if he accepted. As no other London barrister was found to defend Casement, Gavan Duffy had to look to his brother-in-law A.M. Sullivan. Both these lawyers had long histories of involvement in Irish nationalism, though they loathed the 1916 revolutionaries’ violence. Worse, the prosecution team was led by the very pro-Unionist lawyer F.E Smith. And the case was heard before another ardent Unionist, Chief Justice Lord Reading!
Newspapers put Casement's hanging on their front pages
Aug 1916
After a quick, failed appeal, Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison in Aug 1916. Justice hadn’t been done: the Black Diaries were distributed, prosecution and defence teams appeared to collude, the law was from 1351AD and the appeal judge was a biased, ex-Conservative MP.
When WW1 ended, Basil Thomson became Britain’s first Director of Intelligence; this was a crucial time when the fear of Bolshevism overtook fears of German power. Thomson himself was considered too hard line, just as the Irish civil war was ending, given the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Free State in Dec 1921.
When Basil Thomson was sacked, he took copies of Casement’s diaries with him, hoping to supplement his meagre pension. Thomson passed his copies to a Fleet St reporter, but when the reporter tried to publish extracts in 1925, the Home Secretary warned that Thomson would face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Decades passed before the Black Diaries were published in Paris, 1959.
Sir Roger had been a caring human being who, as a result of his experiences in Africa and South America, raised issues that were critical: human rights, corporate duty and environmental justice. He may have played a minor role in the 1916 Rising, having been isolated in Germany seeking guns and men. But he was on the very wrong side in WW1.
After a quick, failed appeal, Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison in Aug 1916. Justice hadn’t been done: the Black Diaries were distributed, prosecution and defence teams appeared to collude, the law was from 1351AD and the appeal judge was a biased, ex-Conservative MP.
When WW1 ended, Basil Thomson became Britain’s first Director of Intelligence; this was a crucial time when the fear of Bolshevism overtook fears of German power. Thomson himself was considered too hard line, just as the Irish civil war was ending, given the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the Irish Free State in Dec 1921.
When Basil Thomson was sacked, he took copies of Casement’s diaries with him, hoping to supplement his meagre pension. Thomson passed his copies to a Fleet St reporter, but when the reporter tried to publish extracts in 1925, the Home Secretary warned that Thomson would face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Decades passed before the Black Diaries were published in Paris, 1959.
Sir Roger had been a caring human being who, as a result of his experiences in Africa and South America, raised issues that were critical: human rights, corporate duty and environmental justice. He may have played a minor role in the 1916 Rising, having been isolated in Germany seeking guns and men. But he was on the very wrong side in WW1.
Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, 1965.
The Guardian
After a campaign to repatriate his body to Ireland won in March 1965, Casement was buried near Dublin, with a huge crowd. His diaries were placed in the British National Archives Kew in 1994.
Read The Guardian, 2016 by Kevin Grant and “The Irish Volunteer” by Andrew Lycett in History Today, 2016.
After a campaign to repatriate his body to Ireland won in March 1965, Casement was buried near Dublin, with a huge crowd. His diaries were placed in the British National Archives Kew in 1994.
Read The Guardian, 2016 by Kevin Grant and “The Irish Volunteer” by Andrew Lycett in History Today, 2016.