A million lives in one: thread of Roger Casement

Discussion in the group chat recently re the book King Leopold’s Ghosts threw up mention of Irish hero and traitor to the Crown (spit), Roger Casement. No, we will not be using the knighthood seeing as he probably didn’t appreciate it by the time he died and was thrown naked into a hole in the ground by the British government.

Casement lived about a million lives. He was born to a Protestant family in Ireland which de facto gave him easier access to the ruling class although he grew up poor, and ended up working in the Foreign Office for the British government (us not being independent at the time ofc). But he drifted into Irish republicanism by joining the Gaelic League and later Sinn Féin, who he viewed as being Irish people’s best hope for independence.

But let’s put that to the side for now. Easily his biggest achievement in life was the Casement report: recording the excesses of King Leopold in the Congo. Previously he had been on assignment there and being commissioned to investigate the human rights situation, in a word, radicalised him. Joyce references the report in Ulysses:

- Well, says J.J., if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what’s this his name is?
- Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman.
- Yes, that’s the man, says J.J. Raping the women and girls and flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them.

He followed this with work on exposing the human rights abuses by Britain via the British-owned Peruvian Amazon Company in the rubber industry against the indigenous Putumayo. How bad was it? He said “it far exceeds in depravity and demoralisation the Congo regime at its worst.”

At some point following this he was knighted for exposing these abuses. You know the way fash are always moaning about returning to tradition? Fucking return me to this tradition, when people exposing human rights abuses were recognised and venerated.

Anyway having lived about fifty lives by then, he got into Irish republicanism directly by way of organising gun-running from Germany to Ireland. He was captured, executed by hanging in April 1916 in Pentonville, and his corpse was stripped and thrown into a hole and covered in quicklime. This proved to be the subject of tensions between the UK and Ireland for several decades post-independence until he was at last disinterred from a grave, bones still intact, and buried in Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin, where he remains to this day.

Fuck, I’ve been writing this for 45 minutes and I haven’t even mentioned his diaries? A big factor in his lack of public support was the fact that pages from his diaries which detailed explicit details of sex with men over the years were distributed by the British government. The authenticity of the diaries has been disputed but afaict they are generally considered to be real, with many minor details of interest only to Casement that would require careful work of decades to seed. In particular Casement used Kikongo slang and reference to local happenings in diaries set during his time in the Congo Free State that would not have been easy for spies or ill wishers to fake. Regardless, the diaries official status is “disputed”.

Did I mention that in addition to being named in Ulysses that Yeats wrote a poem about him as well? He also includes him in the refrain to The Ghost of Roger Casement.

“Come speak your bit in public
That some amends be made
To this most gallant gentleman
That is in quicklime laid.”

His anti-imperialism is so intriguing. He drew explicit connections between the colonial abuses of the Belgians in the Congo Free State and Ireland’s status as a colony:

“I was on the high road to being a regular imperialist jingo - although at heart underneath all, and unsuspected almost by myself, I had remained an Irishman. Well, the (Boer) war gave me qualms at the end - the concentration camps bigger ones - and finally, when up in those lonely Congo forests where I found Leopold I found also myself, the incorrigible Irishman.”

Truly a fascinating character in so many ways. Also, fuck Joseph Conrad for refusing to join the appeal for clemency. Cunt. How the fuck can you be famous for your anti colonial writing and not understand why someone would be plotting against the state suppressing his people? Then again, he always found it easiest to look the other way about the British Empire.

now what more is there to say

nothing that i know of anyway tbh

was there ever a play, tv or movie of note? you'd have thought plenty there for it and we've had plenty of such produced on plenty of less worthiness

Casement has been the subject of ballads, poetry, novels, and TV series since his death, including:
The ballad "Lonely Banna Strand" tells the story of Casement's role in the prelude to the Easter Rising, his arrest, and his execution.(127)

Arthur Conan Doyle used Casement as an inspiration for the character of Lord John Roxton in the 1912 novel, The Lost World.(128)

W. B. Yeats wrote a poem, The Ghost of Roger Casement, demanding the return of Casement's remains, with the refrain, "The ghost of Roger Casement/Is beating on the door"

Roger Casement is featured in Giant's Causeway (1922) by Pierre Benoit, who portrays him as a noble martyr.(citation needed)

Agatha Christie refers to Casement and the 1916 Uprising in her 1941 novel N or M?

Brendan Behan, in his autobiographical novel Borstal Boy (1958), speaks of the respect his family had for Casement.(citation needed)

In 1960, "Sir Roger Casement" was the first episode of Granada Television's new On Trial series, produced by Peter Wildeblood. Casement was played by Peter Wyngarde, who commented "Very little make-up was needed for the part... I am exactly Casement."(129)

Casement is the subject of the play Prisoner of the Crown, which was written by Richard Herd and Richard Stockton; it premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on 15 February 1972(130)

A German TV series, Sir Roger Casement (1968), was made about his time in Germany during World War I.

In 1973 BBC Radio aired a critically acclaimed radio play by David Rudkin entitled Cries from Casement as His Bones are Brought to Dublin

The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa (winner of the Nobel Prize for literature) is a historical novel based on Roger Casement's life, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman and published in 2012.

American Noise Rock band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead released an instrumental entitled "The Betrayal of Roger Casement & the Irish Brigade" on their 2008 Festival Thyme EP

Dying for Ireland (2012) is a biographical novel by Alan Lewis, which presents a "fictional reimagining" of Casement's prison memoirs, based on his writings, histories and biographies.(131)

A one-act play, Shall Roger Casement Hang?, based mainly on his interrogation at Scotland Yard, was performed for the first time at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow in May 2016.(132)

The Trial of Roger Casement is a graphic novel by Fionnuala Doran(133)

Roger Casement is discussed in W. G. Sebald's novel The Rings of Saturn.

Valiant Gentlemen is a historical novel based on Casement's friendship with Herbert Ward and his wife Sarita Sanford, by Sabina Murray, Grove/Atlantic, 2016.(134)

Roger Casement – Heart of Darkness (1992) is a documentary by Kenneth Griffith on the life of Roger Casement.(135)(136)The name refers to Joseph Conrad's novel of that name, written after Conrad met Casement in Congo.

The Ghost of Roger Casement (2002) is a documentary that investigates the authenticity of the forensic examination of the Black Diaries.(137)

I agree he would be a worthy subject of a TV series or film though

not sure Conrad would have been defined by readers of his day or by himself as an 'anti-colonial writer'

The Congo campaigns are quite weird in that some of the people doing the campaigning were not necessarily against colonialism at all. Like they were even patriotic British. Basing that on King Leopold's Ghost which is the only real education I've had on this subject. Like E.D. Morel seems to have had a more complicated belief system than you might expect for someone who is known for fighting to expose what the Belgians were doing.

I’m referring to the fact his most famous work is about the excesses of the Belgians in the Congo Free State? It’s definitely an anti colonial work whether he intended that or not, and yes, obviously it’s very racist but notwithstanding that it documents imperial abuses that did occur and as such is a flawed but notable entry to the canon. No, it’s not some campaigning bit of literature, but regardless, it’s quite something to read that post and have that glib driveby be your takeaway.

xp yeah I cited that quote from Casement himself about how he was a good little imperial drone until various events served to radicalise him, because that was clearly the minority path and indoctrination wasn’t easy to shake off.

huh this is so interesting. a former coworker/friend just posted a long review of the Vargas Llosa book about him, that he wrote almost 15 years ago. it's in portuguese, but I hope google translator can work on it! https://apontamentos.substack.com/p/uma-outra-jornada-ao-coracao-das

(the review is from 15 years ago, sorry)