Tuesday, May 23, 2000

An Irishman's Diary

The recent ground-breaking Royal Irish Academy symposium on Roger Casement featured several dynamic offerings that went unreported in the news columns.

Dr Martin Mansergh, for example, argued that the more idealistic side of Irish foreign policy "at its best" followed a straight line from Casement to Mary Robinson. Ireland's engagement in East Timor, Sean MacBride's work as UN high commissioner for Namibia, Irish support for the anti-apartheid movement and Ms Robinson's role as UN human rights commissioner all followed naturally from Casement's human rights involvement in the Congo and the Amazon.

Casement could be seen in British terms as the forerunner of an ethical foreign policy and in Irish terms as the precursor of a deep involvement with some of the poorest countries of the world. Mansergh - adviser to the current Taoiseach as well as to Charles Haughey in his heyday - saw Casement as a vindicator of basic human rights, who wanted to see a lawful, civilised and humane method of dealing, and who sought better working conditions and price controls: "Comparisons between whites and natives usually turned out for him to the disadvantage of the whites."

Black and white

Consideration of his trial and death led back to the use made of the Casement diaries - both "black" and "white". Where it was obvious that the two documents were interdependent, it was crucial to determine which was derived from which: "Are the `white' diaries based on the `black' ones, which often contain a summary version of what is contained in extenso in the white diaries, in addition to any obscene content?"

That, in effect, was the conclusion arrived at by Dr Robert Sawyer, a Casement biographer, who believes that the black diaries are authentic. Sawyer, an anti-slavery activist, was initially convinced that the diaries were forgeries, but the "accumulation of evidence" finally persuaded him to change his view: "I was immersed in the man's mind for so long". Casement, he conceded, was still revered internationally as a human rights icon - and in Ireland as a national icon. He had taken into account the charges of skullduggery by Basil Thomson, head of the secret service at Scotland Yard, one of Casement's two main interrogators, who advanced at least five different explanations as to how the diaries had come into his possession.

But another academic, Angus Mitchell, who formerly worked with Sawyer, was equally convinced that the controversial references in the diaries are "crude homophobic forgeries" that bear no relationship to the reality of Casement's life. Mitchell is the author of The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement, based on diary material held in the National Library that the patriot wrote (without question) during his voyage up the Amazon in 1910. It is Sawyer's thesis that Casement kept two diaries during this voyage, a "black" or sexual diary and a "white" or non-sexual one. Mitchell is equally adamant that British intelligence was responsible for forging the sexual version. He is currently working to prove his hypothesis despite the considerable weight of academic opinion the other way.

Forensic evidence

Sawyer has on his side the evidence proffered to the symposium by Dr David Baxendale, a forensic document examiner who was given access to and allowed to take a sample of the controversial diaries in the British Public Records Office - for a programme on Casement by BBC TV. He is satisfied beyond any doubt that the material he saw "was genuine", but concedes that a comprehensive examination should be carried out "of all the material" to establish its authenticity. Similarly, Ms Gill Bennett, the chief historian of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was convinced that the diaries in the Public Records Office - the Black Diaries - were genuine, while conceding that it is entirely plausible that the "dirty tricks" brigade acting for the British government made extensive use of the writings to discredit Casement, the great Irish humanitarian.

Dr Sawyer weighed in with further anecdotal evidence to the effect that Hugh Casement, a Balliol computer science analyst and relative of the Irish patriot, by using a programme designed to study the writing of North American children, was convinced that the diaries were in Casement's handwriting.

Context

But during question time at a crucial session on context and evidence, another computer analyst, Kevin Mannering, an English-born TCD graduate now based in Germany, took issue with aspects of Dr Baxendale's findings, particularly in relation to specific letters that appeared in the diary. He disagreed with the Casement family computer expert's conclusions also. While reading a 1970s Sunday Times investigation of a case involving Reginald "Blinker" Hall, the (later discredited) head of naval intelligence who had also interrogated Casement, he noticed by chance "the remarkable similarity between the handwriting of MI5 agent Donald Im Thurn and the handwriting of Roger Casement". As Im Thurn was said to have worked for Hall during the first World War, he became suspicious.

Following publication of Angus Mitchell's book in 1997 and the appearance on the Internet of a section of the Black Diaries, Mannering became convinced that the question of authenticity could be solved once and for all with the aid of linguistic fingerprinting, as outlined at the symposium by James Horan, a forensic document examiner from the City University of New York. Horan said it was probably possible to study amino acid trace marks - indicating sweat - and employ a number of other tests such as pollen dating to establish once and for all whether the documents were forged or genuine.

A special investigation by the Government was called for at the conference by eminent people such as Mr Eoin Ó Máille - who described Casement as "the noblest son of our race" - to decide the authenticity question once and for all and finally put the ghost of Roger Casement to rest.

email: ccassidy@irish-times.ie