Author Roger Sawyer looks back at the life of Roger Casement, whose campaign to secure Irish freedom ended a brilliant career and led to his eventual execution
Today marks the 90th anniversary of the death of Roger Casement, the Irish patriot and British traitor who was hanged on August 3rd 1916. As Ellis, the hangman, put it: "He appeared to me to be the bravest man it fell to my unhappy lot to execute."
Although guilty according to ancient law, should his life have been spared? It has long been clear that efforts for a reprieve, made on strong grounds by influential people, were defeated by manipulation of what became known as the "Black Diaries".
The road to the scaffold had been a peculiar one. The son of a Protestant landed Irish gentleman and a well-bred Roman Catholic mother, Casement had an exceptionally fruitful career in the British consular service in Africa and South America. On both continents he galvanised the service into becoming an effective instrument for the emancipation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved rubber-gatherers.
When consul-general in Brazil, his achievements had been recognised by the award of a knighthood; he was eulogised from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey and in the pages of the Times. As tensions began to build between the British and German empires, he seemed to personify everything that was great and good in British imperialism.
All was well until he decided to emancipate the Irish. The separatists were thrilled to have attracted such a prize and, in 1914 they employed him in the United States drumming up support for their cause. He was chief speaker at a meeting in Philadelphia nine days before war was declared; America's response to that declaration soon led him to concoct a scheme which was to lead to his death.
He contacted the German ambassador to Washington and it was agreed that he should visit Germany to try to recruit an "Irish Brigade" from among prisoners-of-war. Armed by Germany, it would participate in an Irish uprising.
Casement had acquired, for a mixture of motives, a Norwegian man-servant, Adler Christensen, and the two set off for Germany via neutral Norway. Once in Christiania (Oslo), Christensen lost no time in betraying Casement to the British minister there, stating that unnatural vice was the bond between master and servant. However, despite the offer of a reward of £5,000, Casement was not captured and he went on to Germany, where he recruited 52 prisoners-of-war.
Such a poor response disillusioned the Germans and Casement. It was agreed that he should go to Ireland without the brigade.
All of Casement's disloyal activities had been monitored by naval intelligence in room 40 of the Admiralty Old Building, thanks to those who had deciphered the German codes. They knew that a token shipment of arms was going to the Irish Volunteers; they knew that a traitor would land on the coast of Kerry from a U-boat.
Once ashore, Casement was immediately arrested and soon transported to London. One of his two companions was also captured; the other escaped to America. The Volunteers had failed to meet them and no attempt at rescue was made, despite ample opportunity. From something of a national hero, he had become the most despised man in England. Despite this, however, subsequent realisation of the propaganda error of executing rebel leaders in the wake of the Easter Rising might well have saved his life. That it did not can be attributed to the use made of his diaries.
Those who disliked him most intensely, among them Capt Reginald Hall, head of naval intelligence, and Sir Basil Thomson, chief of the Special Branch, had known of his proclivities since his time in Norway - that is, for 18 months.
Their concern was to prevent the granting of a reprieve and, more importantly, to use the diaries to influence American politicians and diplomats. Secret circulation of copies of the diaries helped to achieve both ends. For many, homosexual acts were even less acceptable than treasonable ones.
Once the deed had been done, a cover-up operation began, but not for the reasons that many have put forward. When the first attempt was made to publish the diaries, Sidney Parry (husband of Casement's cousin Gertrude) sought and was granted an interview with the then prime minister, Stanley Baldwin.
At that meeting it was agreed on purely compassionate grounds that Baldwin would "assume personal control of the diaries": from that day onward it would not be possible to inspect them, let alone publish them, "without permission in writing from the prime minister of the day".
Although Parry would have preferred the documents to have been destroyed, for Baldwin to have sanctioned such a course, had it been within his power to do so, would have amounted to surrendering to those who believed the diaries to have been forged.
Given that Baldwin accepted that they were genuine, the diaries obviously had to be preserved as the only wholly acceptable evidence for refuting the charge of forgery - even though today, despite their accessibility since 1959 and the unanimous verdicts of no fewer than four forensic examinations, there are still those who argue that they are forgeries. One might add that there always will be.
Why does it matter? Who cares whether or not the man was heterosexual? It definitely should matter to historians: they must be sure, without a doubt, that their primary sources are genuine.
But the saga of the diaries diverts attention from the man's achievements. In 2003, something did occur which went some way towards focusing attention on his true worth. At a ceremony in London, Lord Wilberforce unveiled a portrait of Roger Casement at the headquarters of the Anti-Slavery Society (not Anti-Slavery International).
The dedication reads: "In memory of Roger Casement (1864-1916), in recognition of his profound compassion and determination to remedy the gross violations of human rights experienced by peoples of the Congo and the Putumayo. The Anti-Slavery Society remembers with gratitude."
Roger Sawyer's books include Casement with Hindsight (1984), Slavery in the Twentieth Century (1986) and Roger Casement's Diaries 1910: The Black and the White (1997)