The Ghost of Roger Casement

During Roger Casement’s treason trial in 1916 and in the short period before his execution a number of typewritten copies, and in some cases photographic extracts, from his diaries for the years 1903, 1910 and 1911 were circulated by the British Government among influential political figures and members of the press in England and the United States. These diaries, jottings on his investigations in the Congo and his later journeyings on the upper Amazon, are in themselves dullish reference reading, for all their subsequent notoriety. Interspersed among these matter-of-fact entries, however, are obsessive references to the writer’s homosexual practices. The 1911 diary is the most incriminating of the lot, with incidents involving dozens of people—Negroes, mulattoes, whites, soldiers, sailors and police.

Though the question of Casement’s abnormality was irrelevant to his alleged treason, the diaries were deliberately used to discredit him in England, Ireland and particularly in the United States. His enemies, chief of whom were the Ulsterites Sir Edward Carson and Sir Frederick Edwin Smith, wanted to see him both dead and dishonored. In the former they succeeded all too well, and in the latter they had considerable success. Casement was the first in modern times to be executed for treason under Edward Ill’s Statute of 1351. Earlier, in 1902, a Colonel Arthur Lynch was convicted under the 1351 Act after commanding the 2nd Irish Brigade against the English in the Boer War. He too was sentenced to death, then his sentence was commuted to life, and several months afterward he was released. Later he became a Nationalist member of the House of Commons.

FR

About the Author

Francis Russell

Featured Tags

During Roger Casement’s treason trial in 1916 and in the short period before his execution a number of typewritten copies, and in some cases photographic extracts, from his diaries for the years 1903, 1910 and 1911 were circulated by the British Government among influential political figures and members of the press in England and the United States. These diaries, jottings on his investigations in the Congo and his later journeyings on the upper Amazon, are in themselves dullish reference reading, for all their subsequent notoriety. Interspersed among these matter-of-fact entries, however, are obsessive references to the writer’s homosexual practices. The 1911 diary is the most incriminating of the lot, with incidents involving dozens of people—Negroes, mulattoes, whites, soldiers, sailors and police.

Though the question of Casement’s abnormality was irrelevant to his alleged treason, the diaries were deliberately used to discredit him in England, Ireland and particularly in the United States. His enemies, chief of whom were the Ulsterites Sir Edward Carson and Sir Frederick Edwin Smith, wanted to see him both dead and dishonored. In the former they succeeded all too well, and in the latter they had considerable success. Casement was the first in modern times to be executed for treason under Edward Ill’s Statute of 1351. Earlier, in 1902, a Colonel Arthur Lynch was convicted under the 1351 Act after commanding the 2nd Irish Brigade against the English in the Boer War. He too was sentenced to death, then his sentence was commuted to life, and several months afterward he was released. Later he became a Nationalist member of the House of Commons.