JACK MOYLETT,
Sir, - Bill McCormack, Roger Sawyer and Colm Toibin have been at the forefront of the Casement controversy recently and I would like to respond to all three. It is easy to defame a person who is safely dead. I have a feeling that much of what is written about Casement, by anti-forgery speculators, is really only a ploy to sell books.
In an extract from his new book Love In A Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar Colm Toibin (Weekend, March 2nd) says the 1910 Black Diary could not be forged: that the very inconsistencies between the contending documents prove the genuineness of both, because the forger would have worked from the genuine diary and would have known that Casement's handwriting had deteriorated in proportion to his failing eyesight; that the undisputed 1910 Diary was written in pencil, in rather large characters and the would-be forger would have done the same in the black diary, which is written in ink, in very small writing and very uniformly.
However, the White Diary was not in the forger's possession because Casement had sent it to Charles Roberts, chairman of the select committee set up to investigate the Putumayo atrocities, when requested to do so in 1913. Roberts, on Casement's instructions, had a typescript made, a copy of which he gave to Casement. Roberts returned the genuine diary, as well as many other Casement documents in his possession, to Mrs Sidney Parry, when she requested him to do so, in late 1917 (N.L.I. MS 13073/13092). The diary remained secret until 1951, when she presented it with lots of other material to the National Library (N.L.I. Special File - A15).
I find it especially interesting that none of Casement's diaries, other then the three Black Diaries and the genuine 1910 Diary, exist for the years prior to Casement going to Germany in 1914. There are no references of a sexual nature in his German Diaries.
Toibin also says "there is not one howler in the Black Diaries". Not true, I'm afraid. What about this one of many? On the evening of Wednesday, November 16th, 1910, Casement saw and described a total lunar eclipse. The genuine White Diary entry is correct to within five minutes. The corresponding entry in the Black Diary is a physical impossibility. He also asks us to pretend that the Black Diaries were not forged and then suggests that Casement's humanitarianism was fuelled by his homosexual erotic energy.
This is ridiculous! It is like saying, as Roger Sawyer does in his book Casement - The Flawed Hero, that homosexuals and treason are linked, or that English homosexuals are in the main prone to be loyal to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. How phobic can you get? This kind of pseudo-psychoanalytic posturing, whether by laymen or trained analysts, is derisory and perhaps an expression of prejudice.
Roger Sawyer is an anti-forgery theorist who has written to your paper on many occasions and is quoted (The Irish Times, October 14th, 1997) as saying, "I do not dislike homosexuals but I detest buggery".He told us on the radio (Liveline, March 12th, 2002) that he knows nothing about handwriting comparisons and has "always gone on the textual evidence" to form his opinion of the Black Diaries. Why, then, does he reject, and attempt to belittle textual analysis? He also said that "there is a wealth of evidence in the Black Diaries about the anti-slavery movement". That statement is incorrect. Most of Casement's witness to the most appalling crimes against humanity, which is evident in every entry of his genuine 1910 diary, does not appear in the Black Diary.
Bill McCormack stated (The Irish Time, August 4th, 2001) that he had made arrangements for a "comprehensive forensic examination" of the disputed documents. We saw the results on RTE1 in the documentary The Ghost of Roger Casement. We saw a forensic expert who told us she only did handwriting comparisons. She also said she did not forensically test the ink because too many different inks were used! None of the tests suggested by James J. Horan at the RIA symposium of May 2000 were done. No textual analysis, no tests on the ink or paper, no attempt made to check for pollen or fingerprints, no dissenting voice allowed to participate in the so-called test process. I remind everybody that, during the controversy which engulfed the brave and honourable Alfred Dreyfus, five eminent handwriting experts authenticated the forged documents. - Yours, etc.,
JACK MOYLETT,
Secretary,
Roger Casement Foundation,
Dublin 1.