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Roger Casement never saw his third Ireland, the country that he helped to birth. That’s probably for the best. He wouldn’t have liked it much. W.B. Yeats conjured him as a ghost, beating on the door. You can’t read a line of Casement’s work without hearing that insistent knock.
Partition and the Civil War would have devastated him. Even the present day would strike him as a grave disappointment. Pointless referenda, an ill-conceived immigration policy, and the surprise resignations of Leo Varadkar and Jeffrey Donaldson (for very different reasons, of course) would serve as a disappointing reminder that the political scene on the island of Ireland is no saner than Westminster’s parliament of damp towels. Still, as Ireland’s new Prime Minister is sworn in today, Casement’s ghost is more than a carping guest. There is a quiet sense of change in Ireland, and there can be no better guide to shifting winds than a man who spent his life riding them.
Who was Roger Casement? You can read his essays and diaries and the various biographical studies and be left none the wiser. There is a great deal of material to sift through, more than for many historical figures, and yet it never quite satisfies. The danger is that Casement becomes more liquid than man. His story can be poured into a vessel of any given shape. He was many things: a protestant Irish nationalist, a homosexual, a bad poet, a humanitarian campaigner, a Catholic convert, a beneficiary of the British Empire and, eventually, its enemy.
The bald facts are these. Casement was born in Dublin in 1864. Orphaned at 12, he grew up in England and Co. Antrim. At the age of 15, his uncle secured him a job as a shipping line clerk, a position that led to his first visit to Africa. He was soon working under Henry Morton Stanley in the Congo, and subsequently took a position in the British Consular Service. A lengthy investigation into the grotesque treatment of the Congolese peoples by Léopold II, who ran the Congo as a personal demesne, resulted in the transfer of the region to the Belgian government and global fame for Casement. He climbed the consular ladder: Santos, Pará, Rio de Janeiro. This period in South America led to a second investigation into cruelty and murder. The victims were the Putumayo Indians and the profiteering murderer was a Peruvian rubber baron, Julio César Arana. Casement was instrumental to the dissolution of Arana’s homicidal little kingdom.
Casement was knighted in 1911. His story up to this point had been extraordinary enough. The British Empire’s cursus honorum had allowed a young man of limited prospects to achieve fame, favour and a fat pension. More importantly, he had done a lot of good. But there was more to do. In the first years of the new century, Casement found a renewed interest in his birthplace. And then came the Great War, and Germany, and a noose in a London prison.
Casement’s first Ireland was born from books and yearning. In 1904, he joined the Gaelic League and set about learning Irish. He stayed at Ardrigh, the fine Belfast home of Francis Bigger, who hosted every nationalist worth knowing. He helped to organise a festival of traditional culture in the Glens of Antrim and ferried the Irish-speaking population of Rathlin Island across so that they could take part in the competitions of music and dance. He attempted to fill out his cheques in Irish and was outraged when the bank refused them. Casement needed a new cause, and Ireland rushed to meet him.
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Comparisons are always instructive. The latter part of Casement’s life reminds me of the Ukranian nationalist Stepan Bandera. Like Casement, he thought that collaboration with an aggressive foreign power would help his cause.
Only Casement’s ineffectualness allows Mr Poots to be so forgiving of his treason. Bandera’s hands were stained with blood, so Ukrainians are not so inclined to romanticise him.
A fascinating man who I have long held an interest in. His actions in the Red Rubber affair likely saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. It is just a shame he ended his life assisting the Enemy in wartime.
Roger Casement did not make modern Ireland. The Black Diaries add much to our understanding of the man, in that they tell us that, far from having a unique insight into the suffering of others, he sexually exploited vulnerable boys and young men. So he was a hypocrite as well as a traitor.
Unfortunate yet I imagine pretty common. Revolting.
Their veracity is still widely disputed. 2016 University of Notre Dame study found that both sides of the argument have serious problems and are not conclusive.
Vargas Llosa who wrote a novel on the life of Casement (and knows a thing or two about him) thought that much of their content described his erotic fantasies rather than actual sexual experiences.
Anglo Irish kiddy- fiddler betrays his country to the enemy in wartime in 1916 and swings for it. Any of the belligerents, at that time, would have hanged such a man. Typical elitist romantic snob for whom real Irish people were a terrible disappointment!
Harsh, perhaps fair. But for balance do you not consider his efforts in Congo and Peru worthy of a mention?
Subhas Chandra Bose did the same during the second world war, and the Indians named Kolkata Airport after him! It’s a funny old world…
Rather more seriously, it raises a question about the limits of patriotism, and how we deal with it. William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) was hanged; Melita Norwood died peacefully in her bed. To put it mildly, we are not consistent. Might it be a good idea if we were a little more consistent?
We would be extremely busy today,if we were.
Why do you write protestant with a lower case p, but Catholic with an upper case C? Is that religious bigotry?
Both should be capitalized, as “catholic,” with lower-case “c,” is an adjective meaning universal.
“Protestant” with a lower case P isn’t an adjective, particularly since Episcopalians and Lutherans should have all of their protestations out of their system by now. The rest of us are deeply sorry about Guy Fawkes and promise to not sell any more indulgences, but it’s probably time to move on at this point.
If Alexander Poots is anything, he’ll be a Protestant. He may even be related to Edwin Poots, speaker of the northern assembly and former leader of the DUP
Because, of course, people or their ancestors never change religion!
Edwin Poots sounds like a character from a Dickens novel.
With a similar world view!
Great. Very enjoyable. And an incentive to know more about him.
A brave man who went against class and colonialism. He was an Irish man and not a traitor. Or if he was, then all of us were.
Us?
Modern Ireland was founded by Michael Collins, Winston Churchill, and Eamon De Valera, not Roger Casement.
The first two men were patriots for their respective countries, and indisputably heroic.
The last two were, to be frank, rather vile, albeit for different reasons.
STEPHEN Casement?
* Roger, fixed it.
Casement was an embarrassing eegit.
Casement was an extremely successful Irish separatist and anglophobe. An ardent Irish nationalist from his teenage years in England he was also a classic advanced liberal aided and promoted by London allies.
His homosexuality fitted seamlessly into those views and was probably a partial cause alongside being alienated from his Ulster Protestant family and background. Being gay and interested in men and boys he did not share the standard racism of the time, finding no fault in those he had sex with in all the Atlantic cities he cruised.
His big problem was he trusted his lads even as they betrayed him.
The Black Diaries available on Amazon explain all.
I once wrote a paper on Casement for a History seminar. I found it sad and mystifying that he did so much good in Congo and South America but failed to understand the complexity of the Irish situation. An interesting life and looks like a good book.
Mr Poots read a book it seems
No mention of “The Dream of the Celt” written by Mario Vargas Llosa (the Peruvian Nobel laureate) which involved several years of research in Peru, Carribean, Africa and Ireland and was widely praised as a masterly account of the life of Casement.
Hard to take this article as from an informed source on Casement given that.