11/06/2016 Briefings

Welcome to our panel discussion of the life and work of Sir Roger Cass

meant. I am delighted to have two distinguished speakers here. On my

right shall each acrobatic, director of liberty for 13 years. A leading

human rights campaigners and advocates in this country and some

with an international reputation in the human right fields. On my left,

press about Sean McConville, professor of law and public policy.

His research centres on the history of punishment and contemporary

criminal appeal policy. Thank you for coming here and we will talk for

a little while about some aspects of the career of Roger Cassment as a

national list, Irish nationalists. May I say that this year is an

important year for Ireland's and we have been, Malaysian the events of

1916, not just the events of Easter week and their aftermath, but also

the events of the Great War. The key focus of this year for Ireland has

been the central element in the narrative of modern Irish history,

the Easter rising. Roger Casement is perhaps one of the most interesting

features from 1916 because there were many unlikely Irish

nationalists, Irish revolutionaries during that period is and in the

years that followed and Roger Casement was won because he was from

drew up -- grew up between Antrim drew up -- grew up between Antrim

and Dublin and was a member of the British consular service for all of

his career and distinguished himself as a humanitarian, a subject we will

come back to. He was drawn, like many others, into Irish nationalism.

Their skin Chiders is another one -- Erskine Chiders who went from

fighting in the bore water within a supporter of Irish independence and

was executed by the Irish Government eventually. A lot of people from

backgrounds that would not be typically Irish nationalists were

drawn into the cause of Irish independence in that period. As I

say, Roger Casement is perhaps certainly one of the most

interesting figures because of the range of things he did during his

career. Perhaps, Sean, I might ask you as the first question, to tell

us a little bit about the life and times of Roger Casement and his, the

context which drew him into the struggle for Irish independence in

the second decade of the 20th century. Thinking about what I was

going to say this evening there are a couple at most of you will know by

interesting times. Around 1560 interesting times. Around 1560

21612, and he said "Treason never does prosper, what is the reason?

For if it prosper none dare call it treason." There is a kind of theme

here tonight of that kind and I here tonight of that kind and I

would like to talk about it. He lived through the reigns of some

pretty bloody monarchs at that time. Shami, -- Roger Casement, was not a

leader of the rebellion and was leader of the rebellion and was

never really involved but, more than that, he was not a conspirator, he

was not the Fenian who was sentenced in this country and served five

years penal servitude is an live long enough to take... Roger

Casement was not back, he was a hopeless conspirator, as I will tell

you. If you have been scouring the world for someone to recruit to

conspire he would have been hiked up your list. -- high up. He was a

terribly decent man and you will hear about this from frostbite. I

want a doc about his Irish involvement. He was captured on

Easter Monday, which was the late Easter that year and on the Monday

in 1916 rising occurred is his mission was not to bring aid and

assistance to the 1916 Arising, it was to try and stop it. He had been

negotiating with the German high command which has been described as

the greatest single assembly of intelligence in the history of the

world and they were not impressed with Roger Casement and his plans.

They were somewhat more impressed with the Irish Republican

Brotherhood and they did send a ship with 20,000 rifles, but Roger

Casement had cut himself out of things and they sent him to Ireland

on a submarine. Nobody was there to meet him, he struggled ashore, it's

thoroughly soaked and wanders around a bit and is eventually arrested by

two Royal Irish Constabulary rural policeman. That was not a high level

of policing in those days, this is the far reaches of Ireland. The

volunteers behind the 1916 rising did not know he was coming and when

he was in custody they took no steps to release him when is a good shot

on the door and the big shout that got the Sergeant to see happen and

police beat him in Galway. They did not do that. He was speedily brought

to England's to be tried in London and I have two point lead in mind.

One is the world going on at this point and the other is Roger

Casement's processing through the system. He was brought to Euston

station on the evening of the Sunday are handed over and taken to Brixton

prison. The last Dublin execution which were Connelly and McDermott,

occurred on the 12th of May, the last executions of the 1916 rising.

His trial opened on the 26th of June, he was found guilty. It was

inevitable he would be found guilty. If we time later on I would like to

appealed on the 17th and 18th of appealed on the 17th and 18th of

July and that was dismissed, refused leave to appeal to the house of

Lords and executed on the 3rd of August. At same time the first day

of the Battle of the Somme occurred on the 1st of July. The first day of

the many battles of the song, Verdun, the biggest battle of the

war so far, came to a conclusion, Jutland came to a conclusion and a

captain in the British merchant Marine who in 1915 rand a German

submarine and sunk it, was captured by the Germans executed for murder.

British public opinion was very unfavourable to Roger Casement, to

say the least. That continued throughout his process. One thing I

do what you do bear in mind, we think of war is being remote, this

was the first war that through the came home in this country. In the

casualty list is published every day. Hundreds upon hundreds of

people and for the Mac was tried at this time and in that atmosphere.

That is the context of what you. -- Roger Casement was tried in this

time. Can I turn the clock back to Casement's Korea in the consular

service? Had it not been for his involvement in execution in 1916,

happy recall retired to county Antrim and lived out his retirement

quietly -- retired to County Antrim. I suppose we would not see him as a

great humanitarian activists. As somebody who has been in this world,

tell us something about the periods and what Casement tried to do in

humanitarian sphere? Thank you. It is wonderful to be

here. It is very neat and tidy to have the human right piece over here

and the anti-imperial piece or National 's piece over there but, of

course, we believe the two are related. I will apologise in advance

to all the Casement experts in the room, possibly relatives and so on.

One of the drawbacks of ending up as a national, international treasure

is people will take from your life what the needs and what they want.

Let me be clear, that is what I are about to do. I am an ex-civil

servants turned rebel. That's... I do not think I am such an unlikely

conspirator. Maybe at first instance but there are things in this journey

that are connected and potentially relevant. In terms of human rights

activism today, and what young people aspire to do all over the

world when they say, I want a career in human rights. What many of them

want to do is go to places, sometimes far away places, and they

want to bear witness and they want want to bear witness and they want

to record and they want to report. That is of course a great diplomatic

service and consular service, Foreign Office tradition. Ukip

trained to do it and you are professionalised to do it. -- you

are trained to do it. You look at what you see. We human beings are

complex creatures and we are intelligent and logical and

professional but we also have a basic human empathy. You have your

unlikely conspirator ambassador, who is in the consular service and goes

too far away parts, the Congo and the Amazon and looks at the dirty

little scoundrels, not so little, actually, being perpetrated there.

We have King Leopold running a little private racket in the Congo,

leading to the abuse and enslavement of local people there because of...

And then he goes and does the same thing and he experiences, he

watches, he bears witness and there are different ways to do this kind

of work. Ways to do it in a very dispassionate and is bureaucratic

driveway. To do the witness and do the report

and not be moved I guess but clearly this is not the case. What is

interesting is that something happens via and somehow this man is

moved from just being a pure Kerry a consular official. Some spark must

have been let. I think sometimes when we are discussing liberation

struggles the world over, even today, we separate liberation

struggles from the passion for human rights. They are often completely

inspired by indignation at injustice and just wanting people to have

basic human rights protection. Having seen them be so exploited and

abused and persecuted. I think that is the key to your unlikely

conspirator but ultimately a human being of amazing empathy and

college. Because there must have been many diplomats have stop he was

not the only want to go to the Congo. Many of the major countries

of the world will have had consular officers in the Congo and Amazon

region. I am sure for 20, 30, 40 years they could have witnessed what

was happening there. Casement was a man who clearly was driven to not

just observe it but create a major fuss about it and write a report

which probably resulted ultimately in the downfall of the Elgin system

in the Congo. Of course, it a lot of people back here in Britain

supported him strongly so he did manage to create a movement to

oppose what was happening in the Congo which others might have been

willing to turn a blind eye to because it was only happening in

deepest Africa. It did not really matter. You could almost argue he

was one of the founding fathers of a tradition that you now see in

international human rights practice or discipline which is the report

writer. You see it today in the amnesties and the human rights

watchers and whatever. We begin with the observation and the report and

the reading witness. We don't necessarily end the but we begin

the. That is actually... It is interesting because he comes from

that sort of public service tradition. That public service

tradition has now morphed in the 20th and 21st-century in to almost

the foundation of international human rights. Sean, could I just

turn back to you for a moment? One of the distinctive aspects of the

Casement story is that unlike the other leaders, or the readers who

were executed in the first 12 days of May 1916 in Dublin, and one in

court, the 15th were executed directly for their part in the

Easter rising, they were all subjected to very cursory

court-martial is that lasted 15 minutes in many cases. Whereas

Casement, of course, as you said, was brought back to London and was

subjected to, I suppose, a normal legal process. Could you tell us

something about the case and the kind of impact the case made during

that summer of 1916? When so much else was happening in the world. It

was procedurally fair. No one else has argued this was not a

procedurally fair trial and Casement was guilty and according to the law

of the day he deserved to be executed. That was undoubtedly

clear. A couple of things could have saved them. One was his defence

counsel who was not very good, I regret to say, AM Sullivan, some of

the young islander and unfamiliar with British practice was apparently

a bit nervous in court and also run a defence which was slightly crazy.

That was that the act of 1851 under which Casement was tried had served

wording that essentially, if you committed the offence of treason

outside the King 's realm, or outside any realm controlled by the

king, you were not guilty of treason. This was not going to fly,

ladies and gentlemen. The second leg of the defence was he was raising

one of the things the British strongly objected to. It was

Casement proselytising Irish prisoners of war in Germany to join

an Irish Brigade. He managed to recruit 52 of them. If you read the

accounts I think he was ashamed of that in the end. He recruited young

private soldiers without their officers. What he was inviting them

to do, he said himself, was inviting them to put their heads into a

noose. They had no idea what they were doing. Somewhere complete

scalawags and were happy to get out of the prisoner of war to goad

drinking and do other things which the authorities do not particularly

like. Others were more serious. Somewhere between scalawags and

serious people. He gets his trial. One of the ironies of the trial to

me was the then Attorney General was none other than F E Smith, Lord can

head. Lord Birkenhead in 1912 had come as close as cigarette paper to

treason himself in Northern Ireland. There was no question about that at

all. He was quite cheerful about this. He did not have any conscience

about it. His cheer was this, it is all the luck of the draw, you had

your go, you did not come off, I was OK. He had no conscience about this

at all. One of the things I will say because it will later. Birkenhead

offered Sullivan the black diaries and we will talk about those any few

minutes. Sullivan did not take them. He said have a look at them, you can

enter a plea of insanity. Casement did not want to do that for these

reasons. I think he recognised he was going to die. He was not happy

with the defence of Sullivan. Werner Chalk urged a completely different

defence in him which was to say I am an Irish rebel, tiny, essentially.

Easement would have preferred that and actually the outcome would have

been rather better if he had done that and stop these three days of

silly legal argument. The Judy was grocers and tailors and bereft of

living in London. There was no case he was going to be acquitted. The

procedure was full of ironies and I think a slightly effective defence

though one member of his defence team was a man called Davin Duffy

who later went on to become president of the first Irish Supreme

Court. He himself was a descendant of a young islander. I think that is

about it that I can see about it. He wanted to make his defence one of

justification. It is true. The diaries were offered. Spring rise

was a British ambassador in Washington, DC. He was very

concerned about the trial and said this trial will have an enormous

effect on American opinion. Do not forget, this summer of 1916 was the

war with undecided. America entering into the war or otherwise was a huge

issue for the British government. I think spring rise who was

Anglo-Irish and self ID soft spot for Casement but he said this is a

great worry. Ambassadors can express worries but that is about it. I know

there was... He had a lot of friends and admirers of his humanitarian

work within British Society at that time. It was an effort made by some

of his admirers to secure a pardon for him. I know that Asquith

certainly considered the idea but turned it down. I have always been a

huge admirer of Asquith but rereading some of my notes and some

of this I began to think maybe my admiration was slightly misplaced.

We will come to it again with the black diaries. While Casement was

still undergoing legal process these diaries were circulated and I will

tell you why I think that was wrong. Asquith had somebody together - 2

dinner and said I have seen these diaries. Asquith said tell as many

people as you like about them. This is not a nice thing to do on a

proper thing to do. The repeat was kind of doomed but is interesting

because it shows the width of support there was, partly because of

the humanitarian work Casement had done. It rained from people like

Arthur Conan Doyle who was the main organiser among literary figures, to

Morrell who admired Casement's work in the Congo. These churchmen and

other literary figures. A vast array of people and I don't know what I

can see about it. It was not a pardon they wanted. They wanted a

reprieve. The difference between hanging and either previous

considerable. Leave me. He was offered the kind of insanity defence

but did not take it because he thought it would be dishonest. AM

Sullivan his defence counsel disliked him. Years later he

recorded his dislike of him and said Casement was also willing to have

the, sexual aspect of the diaries read in court. He turned it down.

Whether this is true or not I do not know but it is in his memoirs.

People remember different things and if they like -- dislike easement so

much they may have gotten some things and remembered others. It was

an inevitable outcome. Absolutely inevitable. Can I ask you, Sean,

about the black diaries? The diaries were found in a House around the

corner from here and they have been a source of controversy ever since.

Certainly, when I first started taking an interest in hydration

history as a student in the early 1970s, there was a general

assumption that they were forgeries. Now I think there is a not quite

universal but general consensus that they were genuine. Could you just

tell us a little bit about how these diaries came into play? In fact,

they had no relevance to the case that was being made against Casement

at all. They did not do anything. They were never, even though you say

he would have been willing to have them read out in court, you are

never mentioned doing the trial. Could you maybe give us a little pen

picture of the black diaries? I will but before that I will disobey the

rules of hospitality and disagree with you. He was called

anti-imperialist but he was very pro-the German Empire. He said IP

fret because with the coming of that day the Irish question becomes a

European and world question. This was the pamphlet he published called

the crime against Ireland. In other words he was rooting for a German

Imperial victory throughout the war until he went to Germany and has his

experience with the German General staff. At which point he described

them at Howard 's and lower than dogs. We are not dealing with the

Saint here. We are dealing with somebody who was caught up in the

world's turbulence and thought he had found a way out and a way of

resolving it. We might just say this he became against all empires

because he also lost faith in the German Empire. Perhaps the final

lesson of his life was not to believe in empires but find

something else to believe in. What can I say, I have not gone any

further than I have gone. I am a weird of where I am. Listen, the

ambassador is quite right. They were collected just around the corner. I

think they were in British possession for quite a long while.

There was a Chirac played out at Scotland Yard with a policeman comes

in and says we have found some trunks. Mr Casement, do you have the

key? No. They had these trunks from the point he started issuing road

German pamphlets. In the black diaries, I think, are

significant for this discussion. I do not know if any of you have read

them but they are a list of observations and encounters and

intermixed with the details. "I Bought a part of steak. I saw a

boy," and then a very explicit description of the boy. My only

question is not whether they are forged, my question is about the

extent to which there was an odd intent and were fantasy. I do not

think -- autoerotic. I do not believe they were all recordings of

actual events, I think there is a large probability of erotic musing

in them. What is interesting to me and will be to honourable lady, as

someone interested in a legal process, these diaries was

circulated in London -- of interest to Shami.

Because, I mean, let's face it, Casement went to war, and when you

go to war it is not a tea party. All kinds of stuff might be used against

you, true and false. In modern armies it is called psychological

warfare. It has been around since the Bible. It has been around that

long. You cannot object to that. When you pick up the sort you must

live by it. This was not the same thing. -- pick up the sword. But

what was a distinguished lawyer and circulating these diaries when

Casement's they had not been decided. -- when Casement's fate.

The winter of the international journalists and all the rest of it.

-- the went to. They were accompanied by Cabinet briefings.

Something that convinced me these Something that convinced me these

were not forged diaries was the very confidential briefings that went to

Cabinet in which he describes Casement as somebody, describes the

diaries as disgusting beyond belief and said, this is somebody who went

from being a pervert to envelop. You have got the whole -- pair of up and

envelop. -- from a invert to -- from a pair of Rectory invert. They were

British Government have thought was British Government have thought was

an enemy of the state unneeded discrediting. The way they were used

at that point was wrong. -- and needed discrediting. It is

significant that in this year and in this embassy these diaries lay

between Britain and Ireland for 100 years. The Irish Nationalists

constantly saying these are forged, this is information. The British

Government sitting with them any Home Office and not showing them. I

think, rather than laying to rest, and I do not been that any literal

sense, the 1916 rising the Kurds an independent Irish state emerged and

the Casement diaries what a poison. -- and Irish state had emerged. Even

the -- they have now been properly published. Could I throw the

discussion open for questions. Wait until the microphone has reached you

before you ask your question, otherwise we won't pick you up on

the TV broadcast. Could I go back to the relationship

between anti-imperialism and nationalism? The first world what

was an extremely important context and Casement's early publications

and anti-recruiting pamphlet in 1905 and anti-recruiting pamphlet in 1905

and Irish nationalism in the years leading up to an early part of the

First World War was heavily influenced by the wish of people

like James Connolly and Casement to save Irish men going to Europe and

being slaughtered. The anti-imperialism was an part that

they saw imperialism as the cause of the war. That was a strong

anti-imperial tone and Casement said -- he said Germany would be a better

in South America.