August 3 - The Execution of Sir Roger Casement

This Day in History: 3 August 2020

 

3 August 1916

 

104 years ago, today, Sir Roger Casement was executed for his role in Ireland's Easter Rising. He was an Irish Protestant who had served as a British diplomat during the early 20^th century. Casement won international acclaim after he exposed the illegal practise of slavery in the Congo and some parts of South Africa. Despite his Ulster Protestant roots, he became a passionate supporter of the Irish independence movement. He travelled to the United States after the outbreak of World War One, and then to Germany, in order to secure aid for an Irish uprising against the British rule, but they promised only limited aid.

 

In April, just shortly before the outbreak of the Easter Rising in Dublin, he was picked up by the British authorities very quickly. The rising had been suppressed by the end of the month, and the majority of its leaders had been executed. Casement was tried separately due to his honourable past, as he was knighted in 1911 by King George V, but was still found guilty of treason. Before and during his trial, the British government secretly circulated some excerpts from his journals, exposing his accounts of homosexuality. Given the societal norms of the time, and the illegality of homosexuality, support for Casement declined in some areas.

 

Want to find out more about the life and death of Roger Casement? Click here for more information, or here for more about the Easter Rising.