The ghost of Roger Casement still knocks on Ireland's door

Roger Casement, the humanitarian turned rebel who exposed atrocities in the Congo and the Amazon before giving his life for Irish independence, remains one of the most compelling and contested figures of the 1916 Rising. As Ireland marks 110 years since his execution, a look back at his journey from Antrim schoolboy to condemned patriot shows why his story, and WB Yeats' haunting tribute to him, still resonates today.

Following Roger Casement's execution for high treason in 1916. WB Yeats immortalized the Irish patriot in verse. One of the stanzas may connect Casement to the graveyard at Nuns Cross Church in County Wicklow. 

The ghost of Roger Casement is beating on the door. 

I poked about a village church and found his family tomb 

And copied out what I could read in that religious gloom; 

Found many a famous man there; But fame and virtue rot. Draw round, beloved and bitter men, Draw round and raise a shout

As highlighted by Michael Neill, Professor of early English literature, University of Kent/Emeritus professor, early English literature, Auckland, and author of "A Hyphenated Identity":

“There is in fact no actual village church with a Casement family tomb – not in Antrim, the home of the Casements, nor, it seems even in Cork, from where Casement’s maternal line supposedly came.”

The newly married Casements, Julius, first cousin, and Maria Clarke, née Lacey-Bernard, had settled in the village of Ashford, moving to Cronroe House, now the Bel-air Hotel, in 1862.  The young Roger had grown very close to the couple and would spend time relaxing in the large Georgian house. The present Victorian edifice was built in 1890 following an accidental fire which completely destroyed the original building.

Unsurprisingly, as an ascendancy family with strong ecclesiastical connections, there are family members interred at Nuns cross church. The Gothic Revival building dates from 1817 and was originally financed by J.M Synge’s great-grandfather, Francis Synge. 

The Yeats family were intimately familiar with the area; W.B  and J.M. Synge were central pillars of the Irish Literary Revival and co-founders of the Abbey Theatre. The painter, Jack B Yeats, was also a close friend and associate of the playwright. Synge and Yeats would collaborate as writer and illustrator on a number of projects documenting the people of Ireland and, notably, following a commission by the Guardian Newspaper, a series of essays highlighting the extreme poverty of the “congested districts” in the West of Ireland.  

Roger Casement in 1904.

Synge’s ancestral home, Glanmore Castle, is located nearby. The aqua tint of Glanmore Castle is part of the Yeats Family collection. The castle library housed an extremely extensive and important collection of books at the time, which would have exerted an irresistible draw on the intellectually curious appetites of the Yeats brothers and Synge.

W.B. Yeats's observation that the martyrdom of Casement would fan the flames of Irish Nationalism was certainly very prescient, and Casement’s ghost would indeed come knocking on England’s door along with the 15 other leaders of the 1916 Easter rebellion who were martyred by a British firing squad.

Casement is undoubtedly one of the most controversial and enigmatic figures in Irish history. Born in Sandycove, Co Dublin, in 1864, to Roger Casement, a staunch Protestant British army Captain, and Anne Jephson, a Roman Catholic mother, who defiantly had the five-year-old Roger and his siblings secretly baptized as Roman Catholics. 

The untimely death of his mother in 1873 necessitated a move back to the Antrim homeland of his father. Roger, his two brothers, Charles and Thomas, and sister Agnes were made wards of their wealthy Uncle, John Casement, of Magherintemple House.   The nine-year-old Roger was enrolled as a boarder at the Ballymena diocesan school, where he excelled, winning prizes in classical studies and developing a love for Poetry and History; however, his formal education would be tragically curtailed after his father's death in 1877. 

In 1912, Casement, in answer to a request for a donation from his former headmaster, would respond politely but scathingly, excoriatingly condemning his alma mater as “anti Nationalist”:

“I was taught nothing about Ireland in Ballymena School - I don't think the word was ever mentioned in a single class of the school - and all I know of my country I learned outside the school. I do not think that is a good or healthy state of mind in which to bring up the youth of any country - and while it endures, as it unhappily does, in so many of the schools in Ireland - which are in but not of Ireland, we shall see our country possessing inhabitants fit to succeed and prosper in every country but their own - citizens of the world, maybe, but not of Ireland.”

- Excerpt from a letter to Mr. W.A. Fullerton, head master. 

In 1880, the orphaned fifteen-year-old, prevailing upon the kindness of his maternal relatives, Grace and Edward Banister in Liverpool, found employment as a clerk in the offices of the prestigious Merseyside, Elder Dempster Shipping Company, significantly, the main British carrier for West African trade and eventually a springboard for his introduction to Africa and his illustrious career as a global humanitarian.

Joining the British Foreign Service in 1892 would prove life changing; as a consular official he would be exposed to some of the worst examples of human depravity and for twenty years  Casement played a leading role in exposing the abuse of native peoples in the Congo and the Putumayo region of the Amazon, where murder, mutilation, torture and rape were commonly used by companies exploiting the natural resources of these areas.

In the Congo, which became King Leopold II of Belgium's personal fiefdom. Reports of atrocities committed by company agents against indigenous people were causing consternation amongst the Western Liberal classes. In 1903, Casement was dispatched by the British Government to investigate allegations of brutality made against the Belgian King. “The Casement report” would prove to be an incendiary exposé, igniting feelings of revulsion and protest across the World. His humanitarian work would be recognized with awards including a CMG and, in 1911, a Knighthood.

Prior to his retirement in 1913, he had become increasingly aware of the injustices in his own native land and had become involved with fellow humanitarian and nationalist Alice Stopford Green. He had also become a member of the Gaelic League, where he met and formed a friendship with Dr Douglas Hyde, President of the League. 

By the end of 1913, Casement had joined the ranks of the Irish Volunteers as a member of the Provisional Committee and was actively involved in recruitment and fundraising for the inevitable armed rising, which he deemed necessary to ensure the introduction of home rule. From a fund initially kick-started by personal donations from Casement and “The O’Rahilly”, rifles were purchased from the German Government with the aim of importing them using private yachts: The Asgard owned by Erskine Childers and The Kelpie owned by a cousin of Childers’ wife Mary Spring Rice, a daughter of Baron Mounteagle. 

The Asgard landed in Howth on 26th July 1914 and, with assistance from the 4th battalion, Dublin brigade, Irish Volunteers, unloaded 900 Mauser Model 1871 rifles. My great-uncle, James Glynn, was a member of the 4th battalion and participant in the rising, fighting alongside Cathal Brugha and William Cosgrave under the leadership of Eamonn Ceannt at the South Dublin Union. The single-shot rifles were obsolete by 1914 standards, in contrast to the 25,000 modern, technically superior German-supplied rifles which were issued to the Ulster Volunteer Force in April 1914, along with millions of rounds of ammunition. The cargo of The Kelpie was transferred to another yacht, The Chotah, owned by Sir Thomas Myles. President of the Royal College of Surgeons, which landed safely in Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow.

 Meanwhile, Casement was in the USA raising funds and meeting with John Devoy, an ardent republican and leader of Clan na Gael. Devoy had contacted the German Ambassador requesting German support to overthrow British rule. Casement’s subsequent visit to Germany with Thomas Clarke’s envoy, Robert Monteith, and his intention to recruit newly imprisoned Irish P.O. W’s into an Irish brigade would prove largely unsuccessful, and the rejection of German intervention would leave him disillusioned and deeply pessimistic about the planned rising.  

Roger Casement and John Devoy.

“The Irish Brigade would only fight for the cause of Ireland and may in no circumstances be used or commanded for a German aim.”

- Roger Casement

In a last-ditch attempt to solicit German help in April 1915. Joseph Plunkett would be dispatched with a plan to use combined Irish and German forces to defeat the British. This would enable the Germans to establish naval bases in Ireland for U-boats, thereby effectively isolating Britain from its vital Atlantic supply route. The plan was rejected, with the Germans only agreeing to send another consignment of weapons. Despite the failure to secure meaningful German assistance, the Rising was set for Easter Sunday. 

Casement’s appeal to delay the rising until June was unsuccessful. Regardless of his deep foreboding, he had decided to join his comrades in the planned Easter rebellion. On the 15th of April 1916, he boarded a German U-boat from Wilhelmshaven bound for Tralee Bay. The Libau, a cargo ship disguised as a Norwegian vessel, The Aud, carrying 10 machine guns, 20,000 rifles, and 100,000 rounds of ammunition, was scheduled to rendezvous with the German submarine. The Aud had been intercepted by the British Navy, and Casement, along with Robert Monteith and Daniel Bailey, a former soldier in the Royal Irish Rifles and ex-P.O.W., was landed at Banna Strand in County Kerry.

British Naval intelligence had been tipped off about an arms-smuggling plot in the area, and the RIC had been notified of men acting suspiciously there. Unsurprisingly, Casement's insistence that he was an English writer researching a book on St Brendan did not convince the arresting Sergeant, who retrieved three Mauser pistols from the rowing boat. 

Casement’s extreme height, around two meters, would also have made him conspicuously identifiable. Following his arrest, Sir Roger Casement CMG. Would be transferred to Tralee Gaol, then onto The Tower of London.

Roger Casement photographed in London.

The Aud’s cargo would be consigned to the deep, scuttled by the captain while under escort by the British Navy. 

“When I landed in Ireland that morning . . . swamped and swimming ashore on an unknown strand, I was happy for the first time for over a year. Although I knew that this fate waited on me, I was for one brief spell happy and smiling once more. I cannot tell you what I felt. The sandhills were full of skylarks rising in the dawn, the first I had heard for years – the first sound I heard through the surf was their song as I waded in through the breakers, and they were rising all the time up to the old rath … and all round were primroses and wild violets and the singing of the skylarks in the air, and I was back in Ireland again.”

- Roger Casement

Casement’s melodramatic internment in the Tower of London and the unsanitary conditions in which he was kept would raise eyebrows amongst the Irish diaspora, including prominent individuals; George Bernard Shaw, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and WB Yeats, who would appeal for a reprieve in light of Casement's outstanding humanitarian record. However, all hopes were dashed before any public sympathy gained traction by the release of the “Black Diaries,” which purportedly explicitly cataloged homosexual affairs with, amongst others, Alder Christensen, a servant employed by Casement. The deliberate release of the diaries certainly undermined any hopes of clemency in an era of virulent social conservatism and prejudice.

Casement’s trial at the Old Bailey commenced on June 26th, 1916; inevitably, it would be a choreographed show trial, especially considering the growing feelings of discontent over the recent summary executions of the 1916 rebel leaders. Casement rejected the legitimacy of the court, arguing that the statute dating from 1351, under which he was charged with high treason, was legally ineffectual in Ireland:

 “If I did wrong in making the appeal to Irishmen to join with me in an effort to fight for Ireland, it is by Irishmen and them alone that I can be rightfully judged. It was not I who landed in England but the Crown who dragged me here, away from my own country. Place me before a jury of my own countrymen, be it Protestant or Catholic, Unionist or nationalist, Sinn Féineach or Orangemen, and I shall accept their verdict and bow to the statute and all its penalties”.

Roger Casement was sentenced to death and found guilty of treason. On the 3rd August 1916, he was executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison, London, after receiving the last rites as a Roman Catholic. His body was buried in quick lime in the Prison grounds.

Forty-nine years later, his remains were re-interred in Glasnevin cemetery with full military honors, his sacrifice and courage acknowledged by President De Valera and more than 30,000 respectful citizens of the Irish Republic.

In this, the 110th year since the execution of Roger Casement, amid the resurgence of autocracy and seeping pervasive control by sinister, self-serving monopolies - Is it time to invoke the Ghost of Roger Casement?

“Self-government is our right. A thing born to us at birth, a thing no more to be doled out to us by another people than the right to life itself, than the right to feel the sun or smell the flowers or to love our kind”.

- Roger Casement