In this revised and expanded second edition with more photographs, all Roger Casement's Black Diaries are, uniquely, again published together, including the never-before-seen erotically-charged 1911 Diary over which London threatened an obscenity prosecution. A number of new characters are introduced and some old mysteries solved. The volume provides both a comprehensive view of the diaries' texts, with explanations for many of the cast of characters, famous, infamous, and fleeting, and a context for the author whose significance and seminal role in the political development of independent Ireland has been masked by the debates over the diaries' authenticity. This is a uniquely fresh and original look at the Irish patriot and humanitarian, hanged in 1916 for treason. It was the same Casement whose reports on rubber slavery and genocide in King Leopold's Congo and the Peruvian Amazon, in 1904 and 1911, reflected in two of his Black Diaries, that shocked Edwardian England. The book also deals with the neglected sides of Casement's life, his involvement in Ulster politics, his family background in Co. Antrim, his Belfast boyfriend Millar Gordon, and his sociopathic companion, the Norwegian sailor, Adler Christensen, as well as a comprehensive view of the authenticity controversies, Casement's homosexuality, and his time in Africa and Brazil. Roger Casement had iconic status in life and after death was sanctified and vilified in equal measure. His real self was consequently obscured. This book combines a rigorous academic study of Casement, the public and political figure (with over 1,000 references and an extensive bibliography, updated to 2016), alongside an account of his personal life, sexuality, and consular career, and an informed view of how they all interlocked and originated. It also provides a fresh assessment of the events leading up to the Easter Rising and British intelligence failings, and an up-to-date account of the controversies that have swirled around Casement to this day, including the attempts made in Dublin, from the 1930s, to threaten the truth about the Black Diaries. '"No Roger Casement - No Easter Rising"' Casement groomed the key personnel who set about creating the Irish Republic, from 1904 to 1923. He commissioned the first arms for the IRA - on two occasions, in 1914 and 1916. To know about Roger Casement is to know why Ireland achieved independence and why Ulster stayed separate remaining in the UK after partition. This volume therefore provides an insight into the political conflict in the north and suggests how it could be diminished by both learning and respecting each other's stories and agreeing to disagree.

One Bold Deed of Open Treason describes the astonishing journey by Roger Casement to Germany in 1914, via New York and Norway. Arriving into Berlin under a false identity, Casement entered a space of conspiracy and subterfuge. Through his vivid and gripping diary entries, a picture emerges of a man caught in the crossfire of international events and spiralling towards a tragic denouement. In recording his daily thoughts, emotions and movements, Casement chronicles his despair at the conflict he witnessed, his hopeless mission to raise an Irish brigade and his attempts to promote the cause of Ireland in an escalating world crisis. With an expert editorial hand, Angus Mitchell provides clear context to Casement’s diaries, revealing his gruelling visit to the Western Front, the shocking interplay between the Easter Rising and the international theatre of the First World War, and the grand, sacrificial conclusion of his life.

Born in Ireland in 1864 Roger Casement acted as British Consul in various parts of Africa (1895-1904) and Brazil (1906-11) where he denounced atrocities among Congolese and Putumayo rubber workers. knighted in 1911, He returned to Ireland, where as an ardent nationalist he attempted to enlist German help for the cause. He was hanged for high treason in London in 1916. A compulsive diary writer, his so-called 'Black' Diaries were finally released into the public domain in 1994. At the time of his trial, these diaries-detailing his promiscuous homosexual activities in Brazil-were used to condemn him and, subsequently, to poison his reputation. Published here for the first time-as are his more public 'White' Diaries of the same year-they not only offer the reader the opportunity to judge their authenticity-still a matter of heated debate-but they also take us deep into the mind of the bravest, most selfless and practical humanitarian of the Edwardian age.

"This book, from the previously unpublished manuscript in the National Library of Ireland, is a valuable and deeply detailed edition of the diary kept by Casement during his journey into the South American rainforests. He had been sent by the British government to report on atrocities against tribal people while being forced to collect rubber in the Putumayo region in the north-west Amazon. Genocide among the Amazon Indians has continued, but external investigations of this kind have been rare. The way in which Roger Casement carried out his work is still relevant to all kinds of humanitarian and whistle-blowing activities. It is also a key text charting Casement's transition from observer to anti-imperial revolutionary and Irish independence leader, culminating in his execution by the British government in August 1916 after the Easter Rising."

Reproduction of the original: The Casement Report by Roger Casement

The story of the colonisation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium during the scramble for Africa is one of the greatest human rights tragedies of recent history. At its core was the exploitation of wild rubber, then in increasing demand in Western markets. The population of the region was subjected to what was in effect slave labour - a regime of unbridled savagery which included imprisonment, whipping, bodily mutilations and killing. On 5 June 1903, Roger Casement left his consular base on the Lower Congo River and made a journey through the regions of the Upper Congo to investigate at first hand reports of alleged atrocities. After three months travelling, he arrived back in Leopoldville on Stanley Pool on 15 September and telegraphed the Foreign Office immediately: 'I have returned from the Upper Congo today with convincing evidence of shocking misgovernment and wholesale oppression.' Towards the end of the year Casement returned to London, where he put together his formal report in consultation with officials of the Foreign Office. The Congo Report was presented to Parliament in 1904. It was a crucial instrument in the British government's efforts to bring about change in King Leopold's Congo Free State. This edition includes not only the report, which has long been unavailable in English, but also Casement's diary of that year. The diary provides invaluable glimpses of the details of his investigation of the human relationships involved and of the life of a remarkable consul during a key year of his life. Both documents have been carefully edited: names which were omitted from the original published report have been reinstated, and explanatory notes provided for the report and diary. -- Publisher description.

In the 1880s the Ulster Protestant Roger Casement worked as one of HM Stanley's volunteers in the Congo, before joining the British consular service. In 1904 he produced a devastating report which showed how the Congo Free State, far from being the model colony Leopold II of Belgium claimed it to be, was a ruthless commercial enterprise run with unrelenting cruelty for Leopold's profit. Six years later he provided an even more horrifying report on how Amazonian Indians were exploited by the Peruvian Amazon company, a British-based rubber company. For this he was knighted in 1911. An Irish nationalist, when war broke out in 1914 he went to Germany to secure a treaty giving Ireland formal recognition of her nationhood. Upon returning in a u-boat to Ireland in 1916 he was captured, brought to London and sentenced to death as a traitor. To blacken his name further, rumours about his black diaries claimed that he was a practising homosexual. The author Brian Inglis was allowed access to the relevant files at the Public Record Office in order to help research this biography.

This is one title in a series of short, illustrated biographies. They tellhe stories of those who have shaped our present and our past, from Beethoveno Dietrich and from Einstein to Churchill.;Roger Casement (1864-1916) isemembered in England as a "traitor", but passionately revered in Ireland as founding father of the Irish state. By 1913, with an internationaleputation as a saviour of the oppressed in Africa and South America, Siroger Casement resigned from the Foreign Office and devoted himself openly tohe cause of Irish independence. He was a founder of the Irish Volunteers andoon after the outbreak of World War I travelled to Germany to seeknternational guarantees for Irish independence. Returning to Ireland in 1916,e was arrested on the eve of the Easter Rising, given a state trial inondon and executed for high treason.