JOHN KILBRACKEN,
Sir, - From time to time the diehards of the Roger Casement Foundation come up with a quotation from one of the so-called Black Diaries to show that it has to be a forgery. Whenever this happens, I find on examination there is an obvious flaw in the argument.
Jack Moylett, secretary of the Foundation, makes such a claim (March 21st) about the reports of a lunar eclipse by Casement on the evening of November l6th, 1910. He writes: "The genuine White Diary is correct to within five minutes. The corresponding entry in the Black Diary is a physical impossibility." Ergo, we are expected to infer, it was a fake.
Unfortunately for Mr Moylett, the only time given for the same moment in both entries is identical in the two diaries: both agree the eclipse became total at eight o'clock. The supposed forger gives only a single line to the whole event: "Eclipse of the moon, just as it rose at 6 - half covered. Became total eclipse at 8." Not one word of this is inconsistent with the six lines in the White Diary (except that the moon becomes female instead of neuter!)
Does this really betray the hand of Scotland Yard? - Yours, etc.,
JOHN KILBRACKEN,
Killegar,
Co Leitrim.
... ... * ... * ... * ... ...
Sir, - So, Sir Roger Casement has finally been buried - for the third time.
Could we now leave it at that? Or maybe he should be dis-interred once again and sent back to pagan England. After all, how could someone with his predilections be left to rest in holy Ireland?
Or could we just grow up? - Yours, etc.,
JOHN NEWMAN,
Dublin 11