ROGER CASEMENT REMEMBERED AT PENTONVILLE by Donal Kennedy

Roger Casement, the Irishman born in Dublin, arrested in Kerry, conveyed to London, hanged by an Englishman after conviction by an English Jury of High Treason wasremembered and honoured outside Her Majesty’s Prison Pentonville,  London  on Wednesday 3rd August ,the centenary of his death there by between a gathering of 60 and 70  drawn from the Connolly Association and other organisations .A representative of the Congolese community recalled the humanitarian work of Casement who had revealed to the world the enslavement, torture and murder of Africans by the employees of King Leopold of the Belgians. Leopold was responsible for genocide there of up to ten millions to enrich himself, and Belgium by the extraction of rubber.

Casement’s speech from trom the dock of the Old Bailey was read out. to remind us of the reasons for his presence there, which he made no apology for. At 9.00 AM the crowd stood bareheaded for one minute’s silence. A lament was played on the Irish war pipes.

Authentic and authenticated writings of Casement written between 1911 and the outbreak of the Great War and entitled “THE CRIME AGAINST EUROPE” and “THE CRIME AGAINST IRELAND” , published by Athol Books in 2003 with an Introduction by Brendan Clifford were on sale. Casement forecast Britain’s War on Germany which had been planned and prepared for since 1904 and condemned it as a crime. The Socialist James Connolly independently judged it a crime, as did the Catholic Bishop of Limerick,  Dr.Dwyer.

Casement’s authenticated essays collected under the titles above appear to have been ignored by nearly all commentators, or dismissed as unworthy of  study.

But other alleged writings of his have been lucrative sources for some writers and useful weapons for anti-democrats, who would not dare to suggest that his trial judge, Lord Reading, the former Rufus Isaacs, had been involved with Lloyd George in a scam involving Marconi shares.