Roger Casement
By Brian Inglis
Brian Inglis writes in considerable depth the biography of a patriot who lived and died in England.
Inglis is giving Roger Casement the attention he deserves, as he displays how he achieved an international reputation three times, sacrificing his life on the third.
Casement was born in Dublin and bought up a Protestant, and although he caused a sensation in England through his reports that depicted the cruelty of both the Peruvian Amazon Company and the Congo Free State, in 1913 he devoted time to exploring the history of his home country.
A year after the First World War broke out however, Casement made a fatal choice…
He went to Germany and secured a treaty that gave formal recognition to Ireland’s right to independent nationhood.
It was this decision that resulted in his hanging, after being captured by the British on his return to Ireland.
In this brilliant biography, Inglis explores the rumours of Casement’s ‘black diaries’, examining his tortured personal story, whilst raising the question of how much effect the diaries had on his conviction and execution. More importantly, Inglis also examines why Casement sacrificed his reputation and his secure professional life in the Irish Struggle.
Although Roger Casement died in 1916, it is bought to our attention that the questions posed by his life and answered in this thorough biography, embrace issues that are still much alive today.
Praise for the author:
“Here at last, meticulously, sympathetically, clinically unfolded is the only adequate biography of Roger Casement.” – Robert Kee, The Observer
“At long last Brian Inglis has given Casement his due. This splendid book tells the story of a troubled soul who surmounted his troubles and rose to greatness.” – The Times Literary Supplement
About the author:
Brian Inglis was born in Dublin and lived in Ireland until World War II, when he was a pilot in the R.A.F. After returning to Dublin in 1946, he became a reported on the Irish Times, and later its columnist and parliamentary commentator. In 1952 he went to London to join the Spectator, where he was an editor from 1959-1962. He is author of The Story of Ireland, alongside a number of other works on Irish History and current affairs.
