Roger Casement

Born in Dublin in 1864 and brought up as a Protestant, Roger Casement began his extraordinary career as one of Stanley's volunteers in the Congo Free State. During his time in Africa, he exposed King Leopold II's exploitation of the natives and went on to reveal the ruthlessness of the British in South America, for which he received a knighthood. In Germany after the outbreak of World War I, he claimed Ireland's right to independent nationhood; he returned to Ireland in 1916, was captured, taken to London, tried, and hanged as a traitor. To further discredit him, the British government released what purported to be his diaries, which contained details of promiscuous homosexual activities. In this absorbing study, first published in 1973, Brian Inglis explores the contradictions--political, religious, and personal--of a man whose life posed questions that continue to be asked today.