his impatience at everyminute lost due to the inefficiency of
theboat’s crew.Andwhenhe set down the time someevent oc-
curred, it was never “around three,” but “at 2:58.”And then
there is Sir Roger’s obsession with estimating the length of
every erect penis he could spy.
Part of his daily work was to count flogging scars and
record theweight of rubber carriers and the loads theycarried.
Yet thisdetail-orientedpersonhadaveryempatheticheart, and
evenwhen he “wanted awfully,” hewas not capable of being
predatory or overbearing toward others. In the Congo and es-
pecially the Putomayo, hiswork environment was hostile. He
was being watched by local officials and industry thugs who
would have been only too happy to discredit himby catching
himin a scandalous situation. That never happened.
In an assessment of Casement’s character, Brian Inglis, in
his excellent and well-researched biography (1973’s
Roger
Casement
), alludes to his strong reaction to Sir Hector Mac-
Donald’s suicide.MacDonald, inorder toavoidbeing tried for
homosexual acts, killedhimself,whichgreatlysaddenedCase-
ment. In no fewer than three separate entries inApril of 1903
heexpressedhis feelings. Inglisgoeson to imply that theever-
present danger of prosecution and the constant need for se-
crecy ledCasement to have a “compartmentalized” or “split”
personality.My conclusion is quite the opposite.WhileCase-
ment’s life was certainly compartmentalized, I would argue
that thebasicqualitiesof his character—his courage, hisopen-
hearted empathy, his steadfastness of purpose—made him a
great humanitarian, a patriot in the cause of Irish independ-
ence, and a gay man with sexual friendships in many coun-
tries. There’s no doubt but that this social context caused him
stress, but hequickly learned the rules andsuccessfullyplayed
the game of life in two different worlds.
T
HE
D
IARIES
B
ROUGHTTO
L
IGHT
The“BlackDiaries”weren’t available to thepublicuntil 1959,
when Peter Singleton-Gates andMaurice Girodias published
the 1903 and 1910 diaries. The book has an ingenious layout:
the left-hand pages contain theCongo and PutomayoReports
(whichwonCasement much fame and admiration), while the
right-hand pages contain the entries of the “Black Diaries.”
This arrangement emphasizes the simultaneityof the two lives
of Roger Casement, the secret and the public. The 1911Diary
was included in Jeffrey Dudgeon’s 2002 study of the diaries
andvariousaspectsofCasement’s life.Unfortunately, thisbook
is out of print and unavailable.
Another interesting source is RenéMacColl’s 1957 book,
Roger Casement; ANew Judgment
. It is well researched and
shows an unexpected sympathy for its subject (taking into ac-
count thevocabularyof the time). It is interesting that the2004
Owens article shows considerable pushback on the subject of
Casement’s sex life, whereasMacColl seemsmore objective:
“I sharewithother ‘normal’persons a lackof understandingof
whatmakespervertsbehave in theway that theydo. ...But be-
cause I do not understand this particular formof sexual grati-
fication, I do not necessarily condemn out of hand all of its
practitioners as monsters. And so, although I am certain that
Roger Casement was a pervert, it makes as little difference to
me, in assessing his place in history, as if he had possessed a
clubfoot.”Thisauthor realized that inanearlier era itwasquite
possible for humanitarianismandhomosexuality toco-exist in
a single individualwithout contradiction.
The question remains, why did Casement feel the need to
keep sexual diaries at all?Why create compromising docu-
ments whose discovery could pose great peril? In general,
diary-keepingwas extremely popular at the time as a cultural
and social activity, and documenting facts and events would
come naturally to a clerk or an investigating government offi-
cial. As to why he kept sexual diaries, there are clues. In the
“Putomayo Diary,” there is an instance where, after having
recorded the day’s activities, Casement consults the previous
year’s diary to see what he was doing on the same date last
year. On October 29, 1910, he finds that, the year before, he
had gone to see a friend and they had had sex. The evocation
of thispleasantmemoryhas important implications.Heclearly
acceptshis sexual orientationcompletelyand, onadifficult trip
through the jungle, finds solace in this. He clearly loved his
life, his friends, and recalling thepleasantmomentsof thepast.
Aspart of his research,MacColl interviewed in1954a sen-
ator of the IrishDáil whose uncle, Francis J. Bigger, had been
a friendofCasement’s. The senator’s uncle hadbeen storing a
trunk forCasement and, after the latter’s execution, heopened
it.He foundadditional diariesdetailingCasement’s sex lifeand
letters frommenwithwhomCasement hadhadasexual friend-
ship. Naturally, Bigger didwhat any friend at the timewould
have done: he burned everything.What amisfortune formod-
ern scholarswhowould certainly have loved to research a de-
tailed, self-documented gay life of the period.
T
HE
T
RIALAND
I
TS
A
FTERMATH
AsCasement’s trial drewnear, sympathyforhiscausebegan to
growin thepopulace, especiallyamong the Irishand inAmer-
ica, where Casement had gone to raise support for Irish inde-
pendence.At this criticalmoment, thepolice found the “Black
Diaries”amongCasement’s effects.Certainpageswerecopied
and circulated by agents of the Crown to discourage support
for amnesty or at least setting the death penalty aside. Except
for a fewcultural luminaries, the support dried up and the ex-
ecutionwent forward.
AlthoughCasement’s attorneyswere not up to the taskof
defending himeffectively, he took the stand as a condemned
prisoner togive a final speech in the dock. It is a famous ora-
tion in Irishhistory, printedandcirculated, because itwasnot
a plea for his life, but an exercise in genteel defiance. Case-
ment reminded the court that they were not his peers, since
hewas Irish, asking reasonably howEngland could possibly
expect loyalty, when loyalty is based on love, not fear or
force.The tenor is thoughtful, courteous, fromonegentleman
to another.
In speaking of the Irish situation, he stated: “Self-govern-
ment is our right, a thingborn inus at birth; a thingnomore to
be doled out to us orwithheld fromus by another people than
the right to life itself—than the right to feel the sun or smell
the flowers or to love our kind.”Coming from themouth of a
gayman, thesewords have anobvious subtext.Theyalsocon-
nect the personal with the political and claim thewhole spec-
trumof liberty as basic to all humanity. It’s true that the quote
above is in general language, but the cause of Irelandwas up-
permost inhismind.
18
TheGay&LesbianReview
/
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