THE British government refused to release the body of Sir Roger Casement for burial in the Republic unless the Irish Government gave an undertaking that his remains would not be subsequently removed and reinterred in the North, according to the views expressed in the minutes of a cabinet meeting in January, 1965, by the then Secretary of State for the Home Department, Sir Frank Soskice.
Following a long standing request by the Irish Government "that Casement's body should be returned to the Republic, Sir Soskice considered it had been established "despite earlier misgivings" about the legality of the proposal, that there would not "be any legal objection to the British government acceding to it".
But, on the other hand, he wrote, Sir Roger Casement had wanted to be buried in Northern Ireland. This, he said, "would be wholly unacceptable to the government of Northern Ireland and it would, therefore, be essential that, as a condition of our agreeing to the proposal of the Irish Government, they should give an undertaking that the remains would be reinterred in Republican territory and would not be subsequently removed".
A footnote to the meeting reads that the cabinet agreed the body of Sir Roger Casement would be released to the Irish Government on the understanding that its final resting place should be in the Republic.
In 1916, the remains of Sir Roger Casement, hanged in August of that year for high treason, were buried in Pentonville Prison, London. They remained there until the request by the Irish Government on January 14th, 1965, for their return to the Republic was granted. The transfer of his body took place on February 23rd, 1965.
The then Labour Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson, recalled that the issue of Sir Roger Casement's final burial "had soured Anglo Irish relations for almost half a century".