Casement

Life & Times

by Angus Mitchell

Roger Casement (1864-1916) is remembered in England as a "traitor," but passionately revered in Ireland as a founding father of the Irish State. By 1913, with an international reputation as a savior of the oppressed in Africa and South America, Sir Roger Casement resigned from the Foreign Office and devoted himself openly to the cause of Irish independence. He was a founder of the Irish Volunteers and soon after the outbreak of World War I traveled to Germany to seek international guarantees for Irish independence. Returning to Ireland in 1916, he was arrested on the eve of the Easter Rising, given a state trial in London and executed for high treason. Since his execution, Roger Casement's place in history has become a riddle entwined in the waging of war followed by the delicate negotiation of peace that has defined Anglo-Irish politics. Was Roger Casement's rebellious nature motivated as much by his 'incorrigible' Irishness as by his exposure of the appalling crimes against humanity that he witnessed in Africa and South America?

176 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Angus Mitchell was born in Africa and educated in England. From 1987 to 1992 he lived in Spain where he wrote extensively on Spanish culture, food and cinema and published the widely-acclaimed Spain: Interiors, Gardens, Architecture, Landscape. From 1992-98 he lived in Brazil where he worked as a film and television correspondent and helped to develop the award-winning historical drama, Carlota Joaquina: Princess of Brazil (1995). Since 1998, he has lived in Ireland. For over two decades, he has studied the life and legacy of Roger Casement and a group of associated radicals, pacifists, feminists, cosmopolitan nationalists, internationalists and other critics of empire. He sits on the editorial board of History Ireland and is a regular contributor to the on-line Dublin Review of

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid, factual, and brief, this slender volume will leave the reader thirsty for a longer, more detailed account of this most complex and enigmatic character associated with the causes of Irish nationalism, anti-colonial humanitarian ism, and gay rights. Casement, like Alan Turing later, was vilified by the very nation who had lionized him previously, only to have his reputation posthumously resurrected. Want to know more? This volume is a good place to start.

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an especially invigorating presentation of its subjects life and time, Mitchell's biography at least carries some clout for a well-expressed overview for the political culture that fostered so fascinating a man. Much to take issue with in the pages' layout themselves, and I'm deeply suspect of the way Mitchell so maddeningly dances around ever really handling the question of the diaries (I'm drawn to re-read Colm Tóibín's brilliant essay collected in Love in a Dark Time), but as a crash-course intro for those erstwhile uninitiated with Casement and the Irish and international histories in which he played a part (hand half-raised) it does the job just fine.