New details of how Britain tried to discredit Sir Roger Casement, hanged for high treason in August 1916, are revealed in documents released yesterday by the Public Record Office.
Eager to prevent Casement from becoming a martyr, a British government adviser wanted to use Casement's diaries to convince "a native of the Congo" that he was not a man of good character.
After Casement's arrest on a beach in Co Kerry following an attempt to bring 20,000 German guns into Ireland to launch an effort to drive British forces out, a plot was hatched to use his own diaries against him.
An Insp Parker of Scotland Yard took Casement's diaries to Sir Ernley Blackwell, the Home Office's legal adviser, according to the newly released Special Branch documents. In Insp Parker's report of July 18th, 1916, he recorded: "Sir Ernley wanted the diaries to show to a native of the Congo, who had declared that Casement is morally clean, and he wished to convince him that this was not the case.
"Sir Ernley's object in doing this," Insp Parker observed, "was that this caller, who had some influence over the natives in the Congo, might attempt to create a rising amongst the natives in the event of Casement paying the extreme penalty of the law."
The Special Branch files, released following a review of the Casement documents, contain a letter from Irish-Americans to the chief of police in London warning of a plot to kill the British ambassador to Washington if Casement was condemned to die. There are also letters written to Casement at the Tower of London by members of his family and friends a few months before his execution.
There is documentary evidence detailing Special Branch efforts to track Casement's movements in Ireland, the US and Germany and poignant lists of personal items, including a piece of soap and a white linen handkerchief, sent from the Tower to Casement in Brixton Prison before he was hanged.