BELFAST LORD PROVOST BALLS KICKED & 2 BOLLICKINGS IN A WEEK

Belfast mayor jostled at park event

PSNI officers injured in Belfast

Nine British paramiltary police were injured during in a loyalist incident in north Belfast where the city's mayor had to be escorted by police away from loyalist protesters and away from Belfast

British Sinn Féin's Martin Miller (Máirtín Ó Muilleoir) was brought to hospital following several kicks to his balls, at Woodvale Park.The paramilitary British police were injured when violent fighting broke out at the official opening of a park.

A large crowd gathered in the area with rocks and bottles thrown at the British paramilitary police as well as at British Lord Mayor Mr Miller of British Sinn Fein. His lovely expensive vehicle was also damaged by the British loayalists.

BritishPolice said the injured officers sustained cuts and bruising in what they described as "violent scuffles". North Belfast Area Paramilitary Police Commander Chief Inspector Andy Freeburn said: "The PSNI will be investigating this appalling incident with a view to identifying those responsible."

"This should have been a positive day about the opening of a children's play park in the area, but instead was marred by disorder which has left a number of our community officers injured."

There were five nights of Loaylist rioting in the Woodvale area last month following a Parades Commission decision not to allow the Orange Order make their return journey past the nationalist Ardoyne area on 12 July. The PSNI are also investigating, if the Pensive Quill was drinking with the North Belfast loyalists before attack.

Lord Martin Miller a Provo, mentored for several years, along with his fellow boy wonder Donnelly, into being Lord Mayors of Belfast, before he fills Gerry Adams shoes, mentored by no less than Tom Hartley the previous British Snn Fein Lord Mayor..

Martin Miller is currently, British Sinn Fein's, newly installed Lord Mayor of Belfast. They say Lord Miller was born in 1959 and never dirtied his hands in the IRA, while he always had the ear of key movers and shakers, within the provo leadership. He belonged to the armalite-and-ballot-paper jet set, who never liked the 'armed struggle.

Tom Hartley a previous provo, Lord Mayor of Belfast, was very keen to find a high profile, public role for his proteges Lord Miller and Lord Donnell, in the early '80s. Miller's first attempt as a local council candidate for the Lower Falls, failed in 1985, but Tom fitted him in nicely at a by-election later in October 1987, with a safe seat. 

Like another previous Provo Lord Mayor of Belfast they were both very young boys at that stage. The Unionists were not happy with the whiff of Miller, using the camouflage of a Gaelic name, like the other Hartley teenage camouflaged protege Lord Donnell.


Within minutes of donning the Mayoral chain the former nominal republican, let it be known, that he would not be taking down his belowved royal portraits of her majesty, from his mayoral office and that he would attend war remembrance events, while holding onto all the Royal trappings of nobility and titles, like Lords, Counts etc., etc.,


Now every Fenian child knows that republicans, do not carry titles of nobility, its just basic stuff, confirming what many have concluded, a long time ago that Hartley has mentored many Unionists, camouflaged under Gaelic names and what have you, to replace himself, as a former Lord Mayor. Tom is now known around City Hall as his majesty.

Hartley and his entourage, were apparently spotted many years ago, engaged in a spot of bird watching in King's County and in the splendour of its castles, which is considered by some as an important, contributing, factor in the metamorphosis of Provisional Sinn Fein, into being a neo Unionist party, with its ongoing evolution, into being a compliant Irish client of the British Commonwealth when the provos take power, with Miller being a classic example of that change.

Apparently Lord Miller, is the perfect candidate to succeed Gerry Adams as Provo Sinn Fein President, being a businessman and extremely successful entrepreneur, along with also being a high flying media mogul, he is regarded as definitely being a safe pair of hands, for the British Unionist establishment. Neither will he be hang around City Hall for very long more either but will as First, First Unionist Minister, camouflaged under both a Gaelic personal and party name. All the influential figures in Provisional Sinn Fein and in the corridors of power at Stormont, can't wait to see Lord Miller of Belfast being there.

What about Martin Corey and the 42 years of sacrifices made, I hear you say ? What about the hunger strikers and martyrs? Well I suppose Lord Miller and his elite will turn up at their commemorations too, like Fianna Fail did over the years, still calling themselves, the republican party turning up at Bodenstown, while passing the white envelope of bankster confetti around. What about Wolfe Tone's people of no property, I hear a few reds under the beds cry ? Ach sure the poor will always be with ye and Gerry Adams will say a decade of the rosary for them. As for Martin Corey and all those currently, politically, interned, like their soon to be partners in crime Fianna Fail, during the Hunger Strike, Lords Miller, Donnell and Hartley couldn't give a fiddlers, apparently!

"

HARVEY AND MCGLYNN VERSUS MARTY O'MUILLEOIR: AFTER THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW

TUESDAY, AUGUST 06, 2013  AM  20 COMMENTS

Guest writer Sean Bresnahan with a piece on the upcoming Tyrone event to commemorate two IRA volunteers who died in 1973.  It was written on the 1st August 2013.

Some noise going on here in Tyrone this week as the DUP's Tom Buchanon leads the charge against the "glorification of terrorism" with his party driving itself wild at the prospect of a parade passing through the town of Castlederg to commemorate local IRA Volunteers Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn, who died in a premature explosion 40 years this month.

Having sung of these two men for years when down in the GAA social club in Aghyaran it's with pride that I'll attend the independent commemoration on August 11th at the spot where they died. These men have held a special place in my heart since first I heard my mother sing the ballad written in their memory many years ago so I'd hope as many of us as can make it will be there to pay a fitting respect to these lads who paid the ultimate cost for the people of Tyrone and Ireland.

But one place I'll not be is at the Sinn Fein sponsored event later that evening as they once again hijack the memory of Tyrone's Volunteer dead for their own party-political interests. In that respect for once I'm of the same mind as the arch-bigot Buchanon, this parade has no place in Castlederg - but not for the reasons good old Tom would have us believe.

Sinn Fein have no business using and abusing the names of Harvey and McGlynn given the recent outburst of Belfast Lord Mayor Mairtin O'Muilleoir, when he condemned the tactics of the IRA during its armed campaign, and those of his erstwhile leader, the Big Lad himself, when he was made a fool of by Miriam O'Callaghan on RTE and tried to rescue his credibility by disowning the very men who put him where he is today - by describing them as murderers. Together they have criminalised the Harvey's and McGlynn's of our struggle, they've done what the British couldn't when they attempted this very same thing in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.

As I write this I'm mindful of Kevin Lynch from Dungiven, who's anniversary falls today, a man who died to prove that what Gerry Adams now believes to be true was nothing but a British falsehood. So they have no place making political speeches in Castlederg to lay claim to Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn and they've no place laying claim to the Volunteers of Oglaigh na hEireann with their so-called 'Tyrone Volunteer's Day' - not when the party leader agrees that when Martin McCaughey and those who
fought alongside him took out a team of SAS (yeah those same soldiers who apparently died in a car-crash in Germany or somewhere) they had somehow become 'murderers'. No doubt Lynagh, McKearney, Gerry and Martin Harte, Declan Arthurs and Big Brian Mullin were murderers too or had murder in their mind's constitution. Some of us still beg to differ.

When O'Muilleoir condemned the IRA's tactics part of what he remonstrated against was its bombing campaign, yet Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn died transporting a bomb. Just last month we commemorated the lives of Paddy Carty, Sean Loughran and Dermot Crowley, who died in a premature explosion in Omagh when the bomb they were carrying went off as they made their way into the town. Many other Volunteers died in similar circumstances.

Effectively what O'Muilleoir and Sinn Fein have done is to condemn them all, and just so they could appear as the honest John's with their phony 'outreach to Unionism' - which Unionists themselves can see is nothing but a dishonest ploy. You see the problem is they want their cake and they want to eat it. They want to stand in front of the media and portray themselves as the honest brokers even should that mean disowning the IRA and its actions, even going so far as to call them murderers - McGuinness and Adams
have both went along with this on the record in recent times.

But then on the other hand and to a different audience they want to claim these men as their own, to stand making speeches in their memory, to tell us how their sacrifice has been redeemed by the progress Sinn Fein has made in recent times and the position the party now finds itself in. It's nothing but wanton hypocrisy, you simply can't have it both ways. People are tired of it.

No doubt the adverse publicity from the Unionist outcry will aid Sinn Fein in it's efforts to lay claim to the Volunteer's of Tyrone, no doubt it will help draw a sizeable crowd to help massage their badly mauled ego. Because the republican people of Tyrone can see right through them in ever-increasing numbers and they know it. It's likely for this reason that they chose to shift 'Tyrone Volunteer's Day' from its traditional slot. It was once a touchstone event in the republican calendar, held annually on the anniversary of IRA Hunger striker Martin Hurson in the tiny republican stronghold of Cappagh in the hills of East Tyrone.

Given the paucity of numbers in attendance as the years have gone by, as the people of Galbally and its hinterland made their feelings known by the sound of their boots walking out the door, Harvey and McGlynn will instead be exploited to make the great and the good of Sinn Fein feel better about themselves. I just hope that those who attend to hear Gerry Kelly tell how the fight of Seamus Harvey and Gerard McGlynn still goes on, while he and his party administer British rule, legitimise the RUC, internment, strip-searching of prisoners and all the rest, take a few moments to consider how Adams, McGuinness, Kearney, O'Muilleoir and co. have disowned everything these lads went out and tried to do in the rush to make themselves yet more acceptable to that same British foe the Volunteers of Tyrone went out and fought to get rid of.

Posted in: Guest Writer,Tyrone commemoration

HUMAN RIGHTS BOYCOTT BRITISH BOICOT MURDER GIBRALTAR SPAIN

                    BRITISH STATE TERRORISM IN GIBRALTAR 

Unarmed Mairead Farrell moments before 

British Murdered her close range in Gibraltar

The European Court of Human Rights, ruled on the notorious murder by the British SAS of three IRA members involved in preparing a bomb near the Governor’s Residence in Gibraltar on 6th March 1988. The three IRA Active Service Unit's (ASU) members, Danny McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell, were unarmed, with their bomb in a car, more than thirty miles away in Marbella, in a Spanish jurisdiction, confirmed that the SAS personnel involved in the Gibraltar murders (Operation Flavius) were following a British Government official “shoot-to-kill” policy. Claims of British State Terrorism were confirmed in the aftermath of the shootings by a BAFTA Award winning Thames Television documentary Death on the Rock.

The existence of a British Government shoot-to-kill policy, within and outside British Occupied Ireland, was also reluctantly acknowledged by the British establishment, in Mark Urban’s British Gung Ho Big Boys’ Rules where he concluded that there was official British Government involvement in a series of extra-judicial killings:

‘The 1980s saw the emergence of a pattern of aggressive special forces operations with the acquiescence of politicians and senior officers, who knew little of the operational detail … This did not involve the killing of any and every IRA volunteer who could be found, as republican propagandists try to imply. Rather, it meant that those in possession of unusually specific intelligence about a forthcoming terrorist attack provided that knowledge … to the SAS. … it was understood that these soldiers would then take the opportunity to play big boys’ games by big boys’ rules.’

A new militarized Zionist-Christian approach to counter-terrorism, which traditionally had dubious legality, at home as opposed to overseas, however came under growing influence from Israelis within the Britain's SS, along with specific Israeli  intelligence input, into the Gibraltar Operation, without Spanish knowledge, contributed greatly to the Murders on the Rock. The origins of the Zionist-Christian movement can be traced to the early 19th century, when a group of eccentric British Christian leaders, began to lobby for Jewish restoration to Palestine, as a necessary precondition for the return of Christ. They gained traction mid-19th century, when Palestine became strategic to British colonial interests in the Middle East. Christian Zionism preceded Jewish Zionism by over 50 years. Theodore Herzl’s strongest advocates were British Christian clergy.

With a blind eye from prosecution authorities, the use of lethal force continued throughout the second half of 1970s and 1980s, during Roy Mason’s tenure as Viceroyal for British occupied Ireland. The British Government’s standard text on counter-insurgency since this time being Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping using the ‘law and the legal system, simply as weapons in the armoury of the British government, within the legal system, its Court officials and lawyers being used in an extremely manipulative, blackmailed way. This also involves the use of British, extra-judicial murders of human rights lawyers in Occupied Ireland ( see‘ Notre Dame Lawyer  49, 76).

In the mid-1980s the corruption of the British criminal justice process was dramatically evidenced, by the refusal of the authorities to prosecute members of the British police, implicated by Colin Sampson’s the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire investigation, into a series of murders by British State Terrorism in Armagh, in late 1982 and In re McKerr  12, [9]). Incidentally this is the same corruption of the Justice system which is destroying the Peace Process in Ireland currently with internment without trial.

The European Court of Human Right’s ruled, that the United Kingdom had indeed violated Article 2, marking a pivotal shift in relations between the courts and the executive, in the context of British State Terrorism in British Occupied Ireland.

The European Court’s decision, criticized the intelligence information provided to SAS soldiers prior to their British Government order to murder  the IRA Active Service Unit with suggestions that the British fooled the Spanish authorities, who could have intervened in the plot at an earlier stage if the British were not involved in State Terrorism within the Spanish jurisdiction. However the European Court decision was largely censored by the British in the media, with the only matter to receive extensive British media coverage in terms of its impact upon British SS being Spycatcher, see The Observer and The Guardian v United Kingdom (1991) 14 EHRR 153).

The British Government's murder of Danny McCann had more influence upon policy. The Court’s decision in McCann one of the Gibraltar three, forced the United Kingdom, to fundamentally reconsider the courts’ ability to restrain the response of armed police or military personnel, returning the focus to their need, to act in accordance within the bounds permitted, under the concept of self-defence in criminal law (see s.3(1) Criminal Law Act 1967 and s.76Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008). These provisions allow an individual to use such force as is a proportionate response, to the threat she honestly believes to be posed by another.

The hyped SS fear of July 2005 which tragically led up to the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent South American, at Stockwell Underground Station is agood example of this. The Inquest into the execution emphasized self defence standards, with the coroner, instructing the jury:

‘You should return a verdict of lawful killing if you are satisfied of two matters on the balance of probabilities: (a) that at the time they fired, honestly believed that Mr de Menezes represented an imminent mortal danger to them and/or others around them; and (b) that they used no more force than was reasonably necessary in the circumstances as they honestly believed them to be.’ But the jury however returned an open verdict, indicating that they were not satisfied that these conditions of self defence were met. This shooting demonstrated the latitude extended to British state personnel under Article 2(2) ECHR, despite the successful prosecution of the Metropolitan Police for violating the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

After McCann the European Court has continued to impose requirements of strict proportionality, upon the use of force in counter-terrorism operations. More significantly the influence of McCann over decisions such as the Israeli Supreme Court’s limitation of Israel’s targeted assassination policy in The Public Committee against Torture in Israel (2006) HCJ 769/02, which approved the European Court’s proposition that:

‘The use of lethal force would be rendered disproportionate if the authorities failed, whether deliberately or through lack of proper care, to take steps which would have avoided the deprivation of life of the suspects without putting the lives of others at risk’. The British as a result of these restraints are the only country in Europe , who as result of these civilized restraints, want to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights.

Should policy makers in states under the European Convention disregard these considerations, and seek to either openly approve or tacitly condone extra-judicial killings by state agents of state terrorism, as does the British Government , Article 2 stands as the surest safeguard that military action will not supersede the criminal law as the state’s primary means of responding to terrorism. Britain currently, not alone ignores natural law, Irish law, European but also Spanish Law, with their Criminal murder on the Rock of Gibraltar.

INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT OF ALL BRITISH GOODS AND BUSINESS

   BOYCOTT BRITISH HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMINALS

BOYCOTT BRITISH HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMINALS @ ROGER CASEMENT

Roger Casement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger Casement
Born	1 September 1864 Sandycove, Dublin, Ireland
Died	3 August 1916 (aged 51) Pentonville Prison, London, England
Monuments	Casement Monument at Banna Strand
Organization	Irish Volunteers, British Foreign Office
Political movement	Irish nationalism, Anti-Imperialism
Religion	Roman Catholic Convert

Roger David Casement (Irish: Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916) — known as Sir Roger Casement Kt. CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his knighthood^[1] — was an Irish nationalist, activist, patriot and poet.

A British consul by profession, Casement became famous for his reports and activities against human rights abuses in the Congo and Peru, and also for his dealings with Germany before Ireland's Easter Rising in 1916. An Irish nationalist and Parnellite supporter in his youth, in Africa he worked for commercial interests and latterly in the service of the UK.

However, the Boer War and his consular investigation into atrocities in the Congo led Casement to anti-Imperialist and ultimately to Irish Republican and separatist political opinions. He sought to obtain German support for a rebellion in Ireland against British rule. Shortly before the Easter Rising, he landed in Ireland and was arrested. He was subsequently convicted and executed for treason. There has been controversy over a set ofBlack Diaries, copies of which were circulated selectively by the British authorities following Casement's conviction, which, if accepted as genuine, would portray Casement as a promiscuous homosexual with a fondness for young men. Given prevailing views on homosexuality at the time, circulation of the diaries helped undermine support for clemency for Casement.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Early life and education
• 2 The Congo and the Casement Report
• 3 Peru: Abuses against the Putumayo Indians
• 4 Irish revolutionary
• 5 Capture, trial and execution
• 6 The Black Diaries and Casement's sexuality
• 7 State funeral
• 8 Legacy
  • 8.1 Quotations
  • 8.2 Landmarks, buildings and organisations
  • 8.3 Song, story and verse
• 9 Footnotes
• 10 Bibliography
• 11 External links

Early life and education[edit source | editbeta]

Casement was born near Dublin, living in very early childhood at Doyle's Cottage, Lawson Terrace, Sandycove.^[2] His Protestant father, Captain Roger Casement of (The King’s Own) Regiment of Dragoons, was the son of a bankrupt Belfast shipping merchant (Hugh Casement), who later moved to Australia. Captain Casement had served in the 1842 Afghan campaign and went to fight as a volunteer in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 but arrived after the Surrender at Világos.

Casement's mother, Anne Jephson of Dublin (whose origins are obscure), had him rebaptised secretly as a Catholic when he reached the age of three, in Rhyl.^[3][4] According to an 1892 letter, Casement believed that she was descended from the Jephson family ofMallow, County Cork.^[5] However, the Jephson family's historian provides no evidence of this.^[6] She died in Worthing when her son was nine. By the time Casement was 13 years old his father was also dead, having ended his days in Ballymena dependent on the charity of relatives.

After his father's death he was looked after by Protestant paternal relatives in Ulster, the Youngs of Galgorm Castle in Ballymena and the Casements of Magherintemple, and was educated at the Diocesan School, Ballymena, later the Ballymena Academy. He left school at the age of 16 and took up a clerical job with Elder Dempster, a Liverpool shipping company headed by Alfred Lewis Jones, later an enemy on the Congo issue.^[7]

The Congo and the Casement Report[edit source | editbeta]

Main article: Casement Report

Casement was appointed British Consul for the Eastern part of French Congo in August 1901.^[8]

In 1903, Roger Casement, then the British Consul at Boma in neighbouring Congo Free State, was commissioned by the British government to investigate the human rights situation in that colony. A long, detailed eyewitness report exposing abuses, the Casement Report, was delivered in 1904. The Congo Free State had been in the possession of King Leopold II of Belgium since 1885, when it was granted to him by the Berlin Conference.

Casement and his friendHerbert Ward, who he met in the Congo

Leopold had exploited the territory's natural resources (mostly rubber) as a private entrepreneur, not as King of the Belgians. Casement's report would be instrumental in Leopold finally relinquishing his personal holdings in Africa.

When the report was made public, the Congo Reform Association, founded by E. D. Morel, with Casement's support, demanded action. Other European nations followed suit, as did the United States; and the British Parliament demanded a meeting of the 14 signatory powers to review the 1885 Berlin Agreement. The Belgian Parliament, pushed by Socialist leader Emile Vandervelde and other critics of the king's Congolese policy, forced Léopold to set up an independent commission of inquiry. In 1905, despite his efforts, it confirmed the essentials of Casement's report. On 15 November 1908, the parliament of Belgium took over the Congo Free State from Leopold and organised its administration as the Belgian Congo.

Peru: Abuses against the Putumayo Indians[edit source | editbeta]

In 1906, Casement was sent to Brazil, first as consul in Pará, then transferred to Santos, and lastly promoted to consul-general in Rio de Janeiro. When he was attached as a consular representative to a commission investigating murderous rubber slavery by the British-registered Peruvian Amazon Company, effectively controlled by the archetypal rubber baron Julio Cesar Arana and his brother, Casement had the occasion to do work among the Putumayo Indians of Peru similar to that which he had done in the Congo. Public outrage in Britain over the abuses against the Putumayo had been sparked in 1909 by articles in the British magazine Truth. Casement paid two visits to the region, first in 1910 and then a follow-up in 1911. In a report to the British foreign secretary, dated 17 March 1911, Casement detailed the rubber company's use of stocks to punish the Indians:

Men, women, and children were confined in them for days, weeks, and often months. ... Whole families ... were imprisoned--fathers, mothers, and children, and many cases were reported of parents dying thus, either from starvation or from wounds caused by flogging, while their offspring were attached alongside of them to watch in misery themselves the dying agonies of their parents.

After his return to Britain, he repeated his extra-consular campaigning work by organising Anti-Slavery Society and mission interventions in the region, which was disputed between Peru and Colombia. Some of the men exposed as killers in his report were charged by Peru, while others fled. Conditions in the area undoubtedly improved as a result, but the contemporary switch to farmed rubber in other parts of the world was a godsend to the Indians as well. Arana himself was never prosecuted. He instead went on to have a successful political career, becoming a senator and dying in Lima, Peru in 1952 at age eighty-eight.

Casement wrote extensively (as always) in those two years including several of his notorious diaries, the one for 1911 being unusually discursive. They and the 1903 diary were kept by him in London with other papers of the period, presumably so they could be consulted in his continuing work as 'Congo Casement' and the saviour of the Putumayo Indians. In 1911, Casement was knighted for his efforts on behalf of the Amazonian Indians, having been reluctantly appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1905 for his Congo work.

Irish revolutionary[edit source | editbeta]

In Ireland on leave from Africa in 1904-05, in 1904 Casement joined the Gaelic League established in 1893 to preserve the Irish language. He also met the leaders of the Home Rule IPP to lobby for his work in the Congo, but did not support them as he felt that theHouse of Lords would always veto their efforts. He was more impressed by Arthur Griffith's new Sinn Féin party which called for Irish independence by using a non-violent series of strikes and boycotts, modelled on the policy of Ferenc Deák in Hungary, and he joined it in 1905.^[9]

Roger Casement's grave in Glasnevin Cemetery

Casement retired from the consular service in the summer of 1913.^[10] In November that year, he helped form the Irish Volunteers with Eoin MacNeill, later the organisation's chief of staff. They co-wrote the Volunteers' manifesto. In July 1914, Casement journeyed to the U.S. to promote and raise money for the Volunteers. Through his friendship with men such as Bulmer Hobson, who was a member of the Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), Casement established connections with exiled Irish nationalists, particularly in Clan na Gael.^[11]

Elements of the Clan did not trust him completely, as he was not a member of the IRB and held views considered by many to be too moderate, although others such as John Quinn regarded him as extreme.^{[citation needed]} John Devoy, who was initially hostile to Casement for his part in conceding control of the Irish Volunteers to Redmond, in June was won over, while the more extreme Clan leader Joseph McGarrity became and remained devoted to Casement.^[12] The Howth gun-running in late July 1914 which he had helped to organise and finance further enhanced Casement's reputation.

In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Casement and John Devoy arranged a meeting in New York with the Western Hemisphere’s top-ranking German diplomat, Count Bernstorff, to propose a mutually beneficial plan: if Germany would sell guns to the Irish rebels and provide military leaders, the rebels would stage a revolt against England, diverting troops and attention from the war on Germany. Bernstorff appeared sympathetic, but Casement and Devoy decided to send an envoy, Clan na Gael president John Kenny, to present their plan personally. Kenny, unable to meet the German Emperor, was nonetheless given a warm reception by Flotow, the German ambassador to Italy, and by Prince von Bülow. In October, Casement himself set sail for Germany, via Norway. He viewed himself as an ambassador of the Irish nation. While the journey was his idea, Clan na Gael financed the expedition. In Christiania, his companion Adler Christensen was taken to the British legation and, according to him, offered a reward if Casement was "knocked on the head".^[13]

The British minister, in contrast, advised London that Christensen had approached them, and also said that he "implied that their relations were of an unnatural nature and that consequently he had great power over this man."^[14] It was this episode that first provided London with the intimation that Casement was homosexual.^[15]

In November 1914,^[16] Casement negotiated a declaration by Germany which stated, "The Imperial Government formally declares that under no circumstances would Germany invade Ireland with a view to its conquest or the overthrow of any native institutions in that country. Should the fortune of this Great War, that was not of Germany’s seeking, ever bring in its course German troops to the shores of Ireland, they would land there not as an army of invaders to pillage and destroy but as the forces of a Government that is inspired by goodwill towards a country and people for whom Germany desires only national prosperity and national freedom".^[17] In Berlin Casement negotiated with Arthur Zimmermann, then Under Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, and with the Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg.

Most of Casement's time in Germany, however, was spent in an attempt to recruit an "Irish Brigade", consisting of Irish prisoners-of-warin the prison camp of Limburg an der Lahn, who would be trained to fight against Britain.^[18][19] During the war, Casement is also known to have been involved in the Hindu–German Conspiracy, recommending Joseph McGarrity to Franz von Papen as an intermediary for the plot. The Indian nationalists may also have followed Casement's strategy in attempting to recruit from among Indian prisoners of war.^[20]

Casement plaque commemorating his stay in Bavaria during the summer of 1915^[21]

However, both efforts proved unsuccessful. The Irish plan failed, as all Irishmen fighting in the British army did so voluntarily, while recruits to Casement's brigade knew they would be liable to the death penalty if Britain won the war. It was largely abandoned after much time and money were wasted. The Germans, who were sceptical of Casement, but nonetheless aware of the military advantage they could gain from an uprising in Ireland, only in April 1916 offered the Irish 20,000 Mosin–Nagant 1891 rifles, ten machine guns and accompanying ammunition, a fraction of the quantity of the arms Casement had hoped for, and no German officers.^[22] A detailed account of Casement's Irish Brigade in Germany was written by Michael McKeogh, recruiting officer and Sergeant Major in the Irish Brigade in Germany and Casement’s adjutant.^[23]

Casement did not learn about the Easter Rising until after the plan was fully developed. The IRB purposely kept him in the dark, and even tried to replace him. Casement may never have learned that it was not the Volunteers who were planning the rising, but IRB members such as Patrick Pearse and Tom Clarke who were pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The German weapons were never landed in Ireland. The ship transporting them, a German cargo vessel called SMS Libau, was intercepted, even though it had been thoroughly disguised as a Norwegian vessel, Aud-Norge. All the crew were German sailors, but their clothes and effects, even the charts and books on the bridge, were Norwegian. The British, however, had intercepted German communications coming from Washington and knew there was going to be an attempt to land arms, even if the Royal Navy was not precisely aware of the location. The arms ship, under Captain Karl Spindler, was eventually apprehended by HMS Bluebell on the late afternoon of Good Friday. About to be escorted into Queenstown (now Cobh, County Cork) on the morning of Saturday, 22 April, after surrendering, the Aud Norge was scuttled by pre-set explosive charges. She lies at 40 metres depth.^{[citation needed]} Her crew became prisoners of war.

Capture, trial and execution[edit source | editbeta]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Roger Casement's speech from the dock

Casement confided his personal papers to Dr. Charles Curry, with whom he had stayed atRiederau on the Ammersee, before he left Germany. He departed with Robert Monteith and Sergeant Daniel Beverley (Bailey) of the Irish Brigade in a submarine, initially the SM U-20, which developed engine trouble, and then the SM U-19, shortly after the Aud sailed.

According to Monteith, Casement believed that the Germans were toying with him from the start and providing inadequate aid that would doom a rising to failure, and that he had to reach Ireland before the shipment of arms and convince Eoin MacNeill (who he believed was still in control) to cancel the rising.^[24] Indeed, Casement sent a recently arrived Irish-American, John McGoey, through Denmark to Dublin, ostensibly to advise of what military aid was coming from Germany and when, but with Casement's orders "to get the Heads in Ireland to call off the rising and merely try to land the arms and distribute them".^[25] McGoey however did not make it to Dublin, nor did his message. His fate was unknown until recently but he survived, joining the Royal Navy later in 1916, and dying in the US in a 1925 building accident.^[26] Despite any view ascribed to Monteith,^[27] Casement expected to be involved in the rising if it went ahead.

In the early hours of 21 April 1916, three days before the rising began, Casement was put ashore at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay,County Kerry. Too weak to travel, he was discovered at McKenna's Fort (an ancient ring fort now called Casement's Fort) in Rathoneen,Ardfert, and subsequently arrested on charges of treason, sabotage and espionage against the Crown. He was taken straight to theTower of London where he was imprisoned,^[28] but not before he was able to send word to Dublin about the inadequate German assistance. The Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers might have tried to rescue him over the next three days, but was ordered by its leadership in Dublin to "do nothing".^[29]

At Casement's highly publicised trial for treason, the prosecution had trouble arguing its case as Casement's crimes had been carried out in Germany and the medieval Treason Act 1351 seemed to apply only to activities carried out on English (or, arguably, British) soil. A close reading of the medieval Act allowed for a broader interpretation: the court decided that a comma should be read in the text, crucially widening the sense so that "in the realm or elsewhere" referred to where acts were done and not just to where the "King's enemies" may be. This led to the claim that Casement was "hanged on a comma".

Casement made an unsuccessful appeal against the conviction and death sentence. Among the many people who pleaded for clemency were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was acquainted with Casement through the work of the Congo Reform Association, theAnglo-Irish poet W. B. Yeats and the playwright George Bernard Shaw. Edmund Dene Morel could not visit Casement in prison, being under attack for his own pacifist position. On the other hand, the author Joseph Conrad, who had a son serving at the front, could not forgive Casement for his treachery towards Britain, nor could Casement's friend the sculptor Herbert Ward. Members of the Casement family in Antrim contributed discreetly to the defence fund, although they had sons in the British Army and Navy.

Casement was received into the Catholic Church while awaiting execution and was attended by a Catholic priest, Father James McCarroll, who said of Casement that he was "a saint ... we should be praying to him [Casement] instead of for him".^[30] Casement was hanged by John Ellis and his assistants at Pentonville Prison in London on 3 August 1916, at the age of 51.

The Black Diaries and Casement's sexuality[edit source | editbeta]

The Black Diaries are a set of diaries, claimed to have been written by Casement and covering the years 1903, 1910 and 1911 (twice). If genuine, the diaries would portray Casement as a promiscuous homosexual sex tourist with a fondness for young men.^[31] In 1916, after Casement's conviction for treason, photographs of the diaries were circulated by the British government to individuals urging commutation of Casement's death sentence. At a time of strong social conservatism, not least among Irish Catholics, the Black Diariesundermined support for Casement.

The question of whether the diaries are genuine or forgeries has been much debated. However, a detailed forensic investigation in 2002 concluded that the diaries had indeed been written by Casement.^[32] The diaries were declassified for public inspection in August 1959.^[33] The original diaries may be seen at the British National Archives in Kew.

State funeral[edit source | editbeta]

The Carriage on which Casement's coffin was drawn during the State funeral

As was the custom at the time, Casement's body was buried in quicklime in the prison cemetery at the rear of Pentonville Prison, where he was hanged. In 1965, Casement's body was repatriated to Ireland and, after a state funeral, was buried with full military honours in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin after lying in state at Arbour Hill for five days, during which time an estimated half a million people filed past his coffin. The President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, who in his mid-eighties was the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, defied the advice of his doctors and attended the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 Irish citizens. Casement's last wish, to be buried at Murlough Bay on the North Antrim coast has yet to be fulfilled as Harold Wilson's government released the remains only on condition that they not be brought into Northern Ireland. Interestingly, the 1966 British Cabinet record of the decision refers to him as Sir Roger Casement.^[34]

Legacy[edit source | editbeta]

Quotations[edit source | editbeta]

Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth; a thing no more to be doled out to us or withheld from us by another people than the right to life itself.^[35]

Landmarks, buildings and organisations[edit source | editbeta]

Many landmarks, buildings and organisations in Ireland are named after Casement including:

• Casement Park, the Gaelic Athletic Association ground on Andersonstown Road in west Belfast.
• Several Gaelic Athletic Association clubs, for instance the Roger Casements GAA Club in Coventry and the Roger Casements GACin Portglenone.
• In Dundalk there is an estate named after him in Árd Easmuinn called "Casement Heights."
• Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel, the Irish Air Corps base near Dublin.
• Casement Rail & Bus Station in Tralee, near the site of Casement's landing on Banna Strand. Operated by Iarnród Éireann andCóras Iompair Éireann
• In Cork, there is an estate named after him in one of the west suburbs, Glasheen, named Roger Casement Park.
• Monument in County Kerry at Banna Strand. Open to the public at all times.
• Many streets, particularly in the north-west Dublin suburb of Finglas, and in the Loyalist heartland of Harryville, Ballymena, County Antrim, although the street is actually named for his great-grandfather who was a solicitor in Henryville as it was then called.

Song, story and verse[edit source | editbeta]

Casement was also the subject of ballads and poetry in Ireland in the wake of 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 subsequent execution.
• Arthur Conan Doyle used Casement as an inspiration for the character of Lord John Roxton in the 1912 novel The Lost World.
• W. B. Yeats wrote a poem demanding the return of Casement's remains, with the refrain, "The ghost of Roger Casement/Is beating on the door". Brendan Behan refers to the poem in his autobiographical novel Borstal Boy, and speaks of the respect his family had for Casement, noting that his older brother Rory Behan had been named after Casement.
• Casement is the subject of the play Prisoner of the Crown, which was written by Richard Herd and Richard Stockton and which premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on 15 February 1972.^[36]
• Roger Casement appears in the "Giant's Causeway" of French Academician Pierre Benoit in 1922, telling of his capture and execution and presenting him as a noble martyr and scapegoat.
• In 1968 a German TV series Sir Roger Casement was made about his time in Germany during the First World War.
• In 1973, BBC Radio aired a critically acclaimed radio play by David Rudkin about the life of Casement, called Cries from Casement as His Bones are Brought to Dublin.
• On 3 November 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa (2010 Nobel Laureate in Literature) published El sueño del celta, or The Dream of the Celt, based on Casement's life.^[37]
• 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.

Footnotes[edit source | editbeta]

1. ^ The London Gazette: no. 29651. p. 6596. 4 July 1916. Retrieved 3 August 2008.
2. ^ Dr Noel Kissane (2006). "The 1916 Rising: Personalities & Perspectives an online exhibition" (PDF). National Library of Ireland/Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
3. ^ Angus Mitchell, Casement, Haus Publishing, 2003 p.11.
4. ^ Brian Inglis (1974, op cit.) commented at p.115 that "..although she allowed the children to be brought up as Protestants, she had them baptised 'conditionally' when Roger was four years old."
5. ^ Sawyer R. Casement the Flawed Hero (Routledge, London 1984) quoted at pp. 4-5. ISBN 0-7102-0013-7
6. ^ Maurice Denham Jephson, An Anglo-Irish Miscellany, Allen Figgis, Dublin 1964
7. ^ Seamas O Siochain, Roger Casement, Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary p.15
8. ^ The London Gazette: no. 27354. p. 6049. 13 September 1901.
9. ^ Brian Inglis, "Roger Casement"; Harcourt Jovanovich, 1974; pp.118-20; 134-139
10. ^ Séamas Ó Síocháin, Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary, p. 357-8.
11. ^ Inglis, p.263
12. ^ O Síocháin, Séamas, Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary p.382
13. ^ Mitchell, Angus, Casement, p. 99
14. ^ National Archives, Kew, PRO FO 95/776)
15. ^ O Síocháin, Séamas, Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary p. 394
16. ^ http://www.drb.ie/essays/casement-s-war, by Jeffrey Dudgeon, March 2013
17. ^ The Continental Times, 20 November 1914
18. ^ An anonymous but detailed account of Casement's unwelcome reception at the camp appears in The Literary Digest Vol 52, No. 1, 13 May 1916 (New York: Funk and Wagnall) pp. 1376-77 [NB, the PDF download is 358MB]
19. ^ On 27 December 1914, Casement signed an agreement in Berlin to this effect with Arthur Zimmermann in the German Foreign Office. Only 52 men volunteered for the Brigade. Contrary to German promises, they received no training in the use of machine guns, which at the time were relatively new and unknown weapons.
20. ^ Plowman, Matthew Erin. "Irish Republicans and the Indo-German Conspiracy of World War I," New Hibernia Review. 7.3 (2003) 81-105
21. ^ translated: Here lived in summer 1915 Sir Roger Casement, a martyr for Ireland's freedom, a magnanimous friend of Germany in grave times. He sealed the love of his country with his blood.
22. ^ Estimates of the weapons shipment hover around the 20,000 mark. The BBC gives the figure the German government originally agreed to ship as "25,000 captured Russian rifles, and one million rounds of ammunition" here.
23. ^ With Casement's Irish Brigade
24. ^ Keith Jeffery in 1916 The long Revolution, The First World War and the Rising: Mode, Moment and Memory p. 93, Ed. G. Doherty & D. Keogh, (2007) ISBN 978-1-85635-545-2.
25. ^ Casement's diary entry for 27 March 1916, National Library of Ireland MS 5244
26. ^ http://www.irishbrigade.eu/other-men/goey/goey.html
27. ^ see Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion, p. 127.
28. ^ Olwen Hedley, Her Majesty's Tower of London, p.19, Pitkin Pictorials Ltd., 1976.
29. ^ Memoir of Willie Mullins, quoted at a Casement commemoration in 1968; a subsequent internal enquiry attached "no blame whatsoever" to the local Volunteers. See theIrish Times 29 July 1968.
30. ^ Life at Ricorso
31. ^ Bill Mc Cormack (Spring 2001). "The Casement Diaries: a suitable case for treatment". Research Hallmark, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Archived from the original on 2008-03-16. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
32. ^ Paul, Tizley. "Roger Casement: Secrets of the Black Diaries". BBC. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
33. ^ The Times, Authors Examine Casement Diaries, 11 August 1959
34. ^ National Archives, London, CAB/128/39
35. ^ [1]
36. ^ Keeler, William. Review of Prisoner of the Crown.Educational Theatre Journal, vol. 24, no. 3 (Oct. 1972), pp. 327-328 The Johns Hopkins University Press
37. ^ Mario Vargas Llosa Publishes New Novel The Dream of the Celt

Bibliography[edit source | editbeta]

By Roger Casement:

• 1910. Roger Casement's diaries: 1910. The Black and the White. Sawyer, Roger, ed. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-7375-X
• 1911. The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement. Mitchell, Angus, ed. Anaconda Editions.
• 1914. The Crime against Ireland, and how the War may right it. Berlin: no publisher.
• 1914. Ireland, Germany and freedom of the seas: a possible outcome of the War of 1914. New York & Philadelphia: The Irish Press Bureau. Reprinted 2005: ISBN 1-4219-4433-2
• 1915. The Crime against Europe. The causes of the War and the foundations of Peace. Berlin: The Continental Times.
• 1916. Gesammelte Schriften. Irland, Deutschland und die Freiheit der Meere und andere Aufsätze. Diessen vor München: Joseph Huber Verlag. Second expanded edition, 1917.
• 1918. Some Poems. London: The Talbot Press/T. Fisher Unwin.

Secondary Literature, and other materials cited in this entry:

• Doerries, Reinhard R., 2000. Prelude to the Easter Rising: Sir Roger Casement in Imperial Germany. London & Portland. Frank Cass.
• Dudgeon, Jeffrey, 2002. Roger Casement: The Black Diaries with a Study of his Background, Sexuality and Irish Political Life. Belfast Press. ISBN 0-9539287-2-1. (Includes first publication of 1911 diary).
• Goodman, Jordan, The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man's Battle for Human Rights in South America's Heart of Darkness, 2010. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-13840-0
• Hochschild, Adam, King Leopold's Ghost.
• Hyde, H. Montgomery, 1960. Trial of Roger Casement. London: William Hodge. Penguin edition 1964.
• Hyde, H. Montgomery, 1970. The Love That Dared not Speak its Name. Boston: Little, Brown (in UK The Other Love).
• Inglis, Brian, 1973. Roger Casement, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Republished 1993 by Blackstaff Belfast and by Penguin 2002.ISBN 0-14-139127-8.
• Keogh, Michael, 2010. "With Casement's Irish Brigade". Dublin: Choice Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907107-41-2
• Lacey, Brian, 2008. Terrible Queer Creatures: Homosexuality in Irish History. Dublin: Wordwell Books.
• Mc Cormack, W.J., 2002. Roger Casement in Death or Haunting the Free State. Dublin: UCD Press.
• Minta, Stephen, 1993. Aguirre: The Re-creation of a Sixteenth-Century Journey Across South America. Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-3103-0.
• Mitchell, Angus, 2003. Casement (Life & Times Series). Haus Publishing Limited. ISBN 1-904341-41-1.
• Ó Síocháin, Séamas and Michael O’Sullivan, eds., 2004.The Eyes of Another Race: Roger Casement's Congo Report and 1903 Diary. University College Dublin Press. ISBN 1-900621-99-1.
• Ó Síocháin, Séamas, 2008. Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary. Dublin: Lilliput Press.
• Reid, B.L., 1987. The Lives of Roger Casement. London: The Yale Press. ISBN 0-300-01801-0.
• Sawyer, Roger, 1984. Casement: The Flawed Hero. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Singleton-Gates, Peter, & Maurice Girodias, 1959. The Black Diaries. An account of Roger Casement's life and times with a collection of his diaries and public writings. Paris: The Olympia Press. First edition of the Black Diaries.
• Thomson, Basil, 1922. Queer People (chapters 7 & 8) An account of the Easter Uprising and Casement's involvement from the head of Scotland yard at the time. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
• Clayton, Xander: Aud, Plymouth 2007.
• Wolf, Karin, 1972. Sir Roger Casement und die deutsch-irischen Beziehungen. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. ISBN 3-428-02709-4.
• Eberspächer, Cord/Wiechmann, Gerhard. "Erfolg Revolution kann Krieg entscheiden". Der Einsatz von S.M.H. Libau im irischen Osteraufstand 1916 ("Success revolution may decide war". The use of S.M.H. Libau in the Easter Rising 1916), in: Schiff & Zeit, Nr. 67, Frühjahr 2008, S. 2-16.

External links[edit source | editbeta]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Roger Casement

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Roger Casement

• "Ireland, Germany and Europe", From the Digital Library@Villanova University.
• Photographs of and about Casement in the National Library of Ireland (no charge for reproduction)
• Brief biography of Roger Casement
• A BBC investigation into the "Black Diaries"
• "Casement: Traitor or patriot?". BBC News. 2006-08-02. Retrieved 2008-08-08.
• 1916 Rising timeline.
• Roger Casement's speech from the Dock at the end of his trial for treason.
• Report of the British Consul, Roger Casement, on the Administration of the Congo Free State.
• Times report on his execution
• Works by Roger Casement at Project Gutenberg
• BBC Radio 4 Documentary, September 1993, plus article in Ireland's Hot Press magazine
• Roger Casement's Gravesite
• White King, Red Rubber, Black Death (2003) (TV) at the Internet Movie Database
• Short version of James J. Horan's review of the Giles report
• Kevin Mannerings and Marcel B. Matley, The "Black Diaries" Attributed to Sir Roger Casement. 2003-2004
• Sean Murphy, Irish Historical Mysteries: The Diaries of Roger Casement. A critical article
• Jeffrey Dudgeon reviews Séamas Ó Síocháin’s biography of Casement
• Links by Jeffrey Dudgeon MBE to images related to Roger Casement
• THE ROGER CASEMENT PAPERS - House of Commons Deb. 3 May 1956
• Arana,rey del caucho, by Ovidio Lagos (Spanish)