Sir Roger, was a 'Gay' Irish Patriot Hero or Traitor. The question of was Sir Roger came up, because the diaries contained detailed accounts of more than several homosexual encounters. A final conclusion seems to have proved that the diaries were those of Sir Roger and authenticated to be genuine. The debate over whether is was a Hero or Traitor, I'm sure will continue. As for being gay, below is an excerpt from the diary, what do you think? 

 

 

 

 

Casement's gay diaries 'are genuine'

By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor

March 13, 2002

CONTROVERSY over the authenticity of Sir Roger Casement's "black diaries" was settled after 86 years yesterday with definitive proof that they are genuine.

	A forensic scientist checks a page from the diary

Many Irish experts had believed the diaries, which detail dozens of homosexual encounters, were forged by British intelligence to discredit Casement shortly before he was hanged for treason in August 1916.

However, forensic science tests carried out on the five journals have shown that they were written by Casement, an Irish nationalist hero who attempted to recruit German assistance for the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.

The diaries were obtained at the time of his arrest and extracts were leaked to the press and other opinion formers, including the American ambassador in London, to diminish support for clemency.

Pleas on Casement's behalf were also made by W B Yeats, John Masefield and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, among others. But the Cabinet, assured that the diaries would blacken Casement's character and avoid his being martyred, rejected them.

There was little mention of the diaries until versions appeared in 1936, whereupon they were denounced as forgeries by Irish nationalists. The British government did not officially acknowledge their existence until 1959, when they were made available to historians. They were finally released to the Public Record Office in 1994, with their authenticity still in question.

Now, exhaustive tests on the handwriting and ink - cross-checked with the so-called "white" diaries, an undisputed journal documenting Casement's time as a consular official in Brazil - have shown they are genuine. Prof Bill McCormack, of Goldsmith's College, University of London - who commissioned the tests from the Giles Document Laboratory - said the fact that the diaries were authentic did not absolve the British authorities of criticism for their selective disclosure.

"Whitehall was guilty of plain blackguardism in deploying private documents to manipulate public opinion in Britain, Ireland and America during the Great War," he said. The diaries, written in an Army field notebook, three pocket diaries and a cash ledger, chart Casement's prolific homosexual activity at a time when such exploits were not only discreditable but illegal.

Home Office papers released in 1995 by the PRO showed how the "black diaries" were used to turn public opinion against Casement. The Cabinet was told as Ministers considered clemency that he "had for years been addicted to the grossest sodomical practices." They were advised that if he were executed "the knowledge of his immoral character. . .will alienate sympathy and prevent his being treated as a martyr".

Casement, an Ulster protestant from an upper-class family, had a distinguished career in the British consular service and was knighted for exposing the privations suffered by natives working in the rubber plantations of the Congo and the Amazon.

He resigned from the service in 1913 and became involved with Irish republicanism, trying to raise an Irish brigade among prisoners of war in Germany. He also tried to organize German military help for an uprising and was captured after returning to Ireland in a U-Boat.

Patrick Casement, a psycho-analyst and a member of the family, said he was not surprised to discover that the diaries were genuine, though he felt other relatives would be disappointed in the findings.

"Some people have long been shocked that someone so eminent could have indulged in the promiscuous and homosexual acts that he did, let alone that he could have recorded them in such perverse detail," he added.

"The diaries may have become a record of that side of Casement's nature that was split off and disavowed by the respectable side of himself."

The authentication of the diaries is the subject of two television documentaries, one for BBC Four and another for RTE in Ireland.

There remain, however, some unanswered questions.

What happened to a diary written on loose sheets of buff-colored paper shown to an American journalist in 1916 and which has disappeared? And why are some police files about the diaries dating from the 1930s still withheld?

Interesting Related Links on Sir Roger Casement and the "Black Diaries":

Roger Casement - Hero or Traitor? http://www.ulst.ac.uk/thisisland/modules/ww1/caseintro.html

The Forged Black Diaries: http://www.pcug.co.uk/~anaconda/blackdiaries/blackdiaries.html

Sir Roger Casement's Speech from the Dock: He denied that he had committed treason because he rejected the legitimacy of British rule and made this speech in his defense. This speech made a powerful impression upon the public and was cited by later generations as justification for the rising. http://www.ucc.ie/ucc/depts/history/multitext/1916/casement.html#roger

Reforming the Heart of Darkness: The Congo Reform Movement in England and the United States. http://www.boondocksnet.com/congo/congo_crime07.html