Sir, - My heart sinks when I see a new letter on this subject. But so long as your correspondents misrepresent my views, I feel bound to claim one more right of reply.
John Garton states (January 10th) that I support British attitudes to Casement. I don't know what British attitudes are. I believe his ill fated sojourn in Germany was a most serious error of judgment, to say the very least, as is shown by its almost total failure. My attitude to it is no different from that of virtually all the Irish prisoners of war that he harangued in Limburg.
It is obvious, without reciting the deeds of Quinlisk and others, that British intelligence would have been doing all in its power to hamstring the enemy, whether German or nationalist Irish. That was its raison d'etre. However I decline to accept a scenario that would have Thomson (or whoever) deciding in 1915 that because Casement was in Berlin, and might be on treasonable business, and might one day return to the jurisdiction, where he might be captured and tried, and might be sentenced to death, it would be as well to start work on forging some diaries of his - especially when these wouldn't be usable as evidence at his trial, but to alienate sympathy in the event of petitions for clemency. I don't know if it supports British attitudes to hold, as I do, that it was contemptible to use them in this way.
Incidentally, as far as I know, Thomson's eventual downfall came when he was found guilty in 1925 of indecent behaviour with a prostitute in Hyde Park, rather than as suggested by Mr Garton. - Yours, etc
Killegar,
Co Leitrim.