Much of what has been published about the diaries scandal is demonstrably false. Today’s consensus for authenticity of these vile documents is the result of persistent propaganda, a long campaign of deception and disinformation since the 1950s aimed at concealing the criminal plot to exact revenge on Casement. Listed below are fifty of the most frequent lies and falsehoods which nonetheless are believed to be facts. That it was necessary to publish so much deception constitutes strong evidence of awareness of forgery.

1 – The diaries were found in Casement’s luggage. False. No incriminating diaries were found anywhere. Source of disinformation: Basil Thomson & CID in 1916. Home Secretary R. A. Butler and many later biographers.

2 – The luggage was delivered to Scotland Yard on 25th April, 1916. False. Most biographers and commentators now accept that the police seized the luggage at least one year earlier. Source of disinformation: police interrogation document 25th April. Dudgeon is now alone in defending the bogus April claim.

3 – The diaries were ‘circulated’ to influential persons before, during and after the trial. False. The diaries were never circulated at any time and indeed were not shown to anyone in 1916. Source: René MacColl and later authors. Nor were the police typescripts circulated; they were shown to selected persons.

4 – King George V, missionary John Harris, Clement Shorter, US journalist Ben Allen, Ambassador Walter Page and others were shown handwritten diaries. False. Home Office files state that these persons were shown police typescripts which allegedly were official copies of unseen diaries. Source of disinformation: Inglis, Sawyer, Reid, Dudgeon, Ó Síocháin, etc.

5 – Anyone who wanted to see the diaries could do so. False. Only police typescripts were shown and this was a targeted and controlled operation. Source of this disinformation was biographer B. L. Reid who failed to name anyone who saw manuscript diaries in 1916.

6 – Casement’s parents were alcoholics. False. There is no evidence to support this allegation. Source: the recent biography Broken Archangel by R. Philipps. This slur contributes to the portrait of Casement as a fractured personality, disturbed and unstable since childhood.

7 – Casement’s nationalist feelings arose very late in his life. False. Source: Attorney General F. E. Smith and most biographers. Casement had felt nationalist sentiments from his schooldays and favoured some form of Home Rule. He joined Sinn Féin in 1905 and moved to support outright independence when it became clear that Britain would never grant either Home Rule or independence.

8 – Casement told his defence barrister Sullivan that he was homosexual. False. Sullivan did claim this in 1952 for the first time but in 1956 he publicly admitted that he had lied; ’He told me nothing about the diaries or about himself…’

9 – Casement had homosexual relations with his servant Christensen. False. Source: Findlay, Brian Inglis and later biographers especially Dudgeon. There is no evidence that Casement ever had sexual relations with anyone.

10 – Christensen betrayed Casement to Findlay at the Oslo legation in 1914. False. This lie was invented by Brian Inglis in his 1973 biography. The Foreign Office files of the period show very clearly that no betrayal took place. Nonetheless, the Inglis lie has been widely accepted and is the foundation of Dudgeon’s incoherent but influential mythology.

11 – In 1916, Christensen offered to testify against Casement. False. There is no evidence that Christensen offered any such thing. The claim originated in 1916 from a telegram sent by Consul General Bayley in New York to Nicolson in the Foreign Office. Inglis lied again – ‘Christensen wrote to the Foreign Office from the United States suggesting they might like to have his testimony against the traitor.’ No such letter or document written by Christensen has ever been seen. Inglis gave no source for this lie or indeed for any of his many lies.

12 – Casement’s mission to Germany failed totally. False. Source of disinformation: most biographers. His mission had three objectives; two succeeded and one failed.

13 – The Giles Report was a state-of-the-art forensic investigation proving authenticity by DNA, paper and ink testing. False. Source of this disinformation: the British and Irish media; recent comments by former Foreign Office historian Gill Bennett. Giles was not commissioned to produce a forensic report for court purposes. She produced a handwriting comparison without charts or explanations or examples and concluded with an opinion which proved nothing. There was no DNA testing or paper and ink testing since these are not allowed by government policy. Her report was independently peer reviewed by US document experts James Horan and Marcel Matley who stated that it did not meet publication standards and was ‘junk science’. Her investigation had no official status and was privately commissioned by a well-known proponent of authenticity. The remit given to Giles was biased instructing her to authenticate the diaries.

14 – Michael Collins authenticated the diaries. False. Collins was shown two diaries in 1922 but he left no written comment about the experience. The widely believed claim is based on hearsay comments made many years later by Eamon Duggan who saw the diaries with Collins. In 1922 shortly after seeing the diaries, Collins told Gogarty and friends that he knew Smith’s purpose in showing him the diaries was to persuade him of their authenticity. There is no evidence of any kind to show that Collins was duped by seeing the diaries.

15 – Casement conducted an affair with Joseph Millar Gordon in 1910. False. This lie was invented by Frank Hall of MI5 in 1915-16 and amplified by others including Dudgeon.

16 – Casement bought a motorcycle for Gordon in 1911. False. This was also invented by Frank Hall of MI5 and promoted by Dudgeon and others.

17 – Other scandalous diaries were found by Casement’s friend Biggar after the execution and were destroyed at once. False. This lie was invented by René MacColl in his 1956 book. He gave as source a well-known anonymous citizen of Cork who allegedly was informed by Biggar’s nephew shortly before the nephew’s death in 1951. When the alleged source died in 1967, MacColl revealed his name.

18 – Casement instructed his lawyers to prepare his trial defence against homosexual charges. False. Source: this lie was invented by Dudgeon in his 2002 book and has been since amplified by several authors. No such charges were ever made or contemplated and Casement knew nothing about the diaries scandal until after the trial.

19 – A post-mortem examination by the prison doctor confirmed the homosexual allegation. False. The prison doctor wrote that he had performed an anal probe and found anal dilation, a normal condition in cadavers. This was taken to be confirmation of habitual sodomy. Although documented, It is uncertain that this probe was performed and there is no explanation of why it was required.

20 – In 1957 The Sunday Times published a poem by Casement which was interpreted as a confession of homosexuality. False. The poem was called The Nameless One and its authorship remains unknown. Publication of the poem coincided with publication of Alfred Noyes’ book, Justice for Casement. The poem typescript was sent to the newspaper by Frank McDermott, a retired Irish journalist living in Paris and published in an article by his friend Unionist MP and former MI6 agent H. Montgomery Hyde who claimed he found the manuscript in The National Library of Ireland. A manuscript poem of that name in the library is radically different in subject, style, construction and date of composition. No-one knows who wrote the poem published in the newspaper.

21 – Casement intended to invade Ireland with the Irish Brigade. False. The source of this absurdity is Roland Philipps, author of the totally dishonest biography Broken Archangel.

22 – 25 Author Roger Sawyer was a prominent forgery denier who published a cluster of four lies on a single page of his 1984 book The Flawed Hero. On page 140 we find the first lie, a claim that editor Clement Shorter was shown ‘the originals’ by Thomson. No source is given and in 1922 Shorter published a pamphlet indicating that he did not see manuscript diaries. Sawyer’s second lie asserts ‘[He] was prompted to declare that the handwriting bore not the faintest resemblance to Casement’s.’ Again no source is cited and no other author mentions this claim. His third deceit asserts that the ‘original rolled manuscript’ shown to journalist Ben Allen ‘was later found to have been twenty-two pages torn out of the 1903 diary.’ However this is patently false; the pages seen by Allen measure 216x356mm approximately which makes them 5.7 times larger than the diary pages at 90x150mm. Sawyer’s fourth deceit on this page alone asserts that Congo missionary John Harris was shown ‘the diaries’ and was convinced of their authenticity. This too is transparently false. HO 144/1636 confirms that Blackwell showed the typescripts to Harris on 19 July, 1916. This does not exhaust Sawyer’s lies.

26 – 29 Sawyer was surely inspired by Brian Inglis, the influential pioneer of diary propaganda and deception. On page 290 of his 1974 edition, Inglis published a group of interconnected lies which are the foundation of today’s claims of authenticity. ‘But he [Findlay] transmitted Christensen’s information to Whitehall, enclosing the material Christensen had handed over. It included a letter in which Casement described his servant. “I am glad I brought him, indeed- he is a treasure”.’ In these few lines there are four lies. First, Christensen did not hand over any material. Second, Findlay did not take possession of any letter. Third, the letter mentioned had not yet been written. Fourth, the letter mentioned was written weeks later and does not state ‘he is a treasure’. Findlay’s own account does not claim material was handed over and does not mention the altered phrase. Both MacColl and Doerries cite the phrase correctly as ‘he has been a treasure’. The relevant FO files does not contain any letter allegedly ‘handed over’ and enclosed. There are many other deceits in Inglis’ book.

30 – Popular historian Robert Kee reported a 1956 interview with Serjeant Sullivan during which Sullivan recounted a seventh version of the diaries provenance supposedly reported to him by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1916. This alleges Christensen stole the diaries from Casement during the voyage to Norway in 1914 and later sold them to the British. There is no evidence whatsoever to support this absurdity which contradicts the other six conflicting versions of provenance.

31 – Professor Christopher Andrew is a recognized authority on the British intelligence services. In a 2005 essay Professor Andrew wrote ‘One of the reports from Findlay … included the statement that Casement and Christensen had ‘unnatural relations’ … they began when he was a seaman aged only fifteen or sixteen … according to Christensen, Casement followed him into a lavatory in a Montevideo hotel where they had sex.’ This statement attributes to Findlay comments allegedly made to him by Christensen in 1914. This is false. Scrutiny of Findlay’s extensive correspondence with Nicolson in Whitehall fails to produce any such statement far less any reference to Montevideo.

32 – 34 Paul Tilzey, producer of the 2002 BBC documentary Secrets of the Black Diaries, repeats on his BBC website many of the above lies. He describes the Giles investigation as ‘impartial scientific analysis’ and the first  ‘independent forensic examination’ although it was neither impartial nor scientific, nor independent nor forensic. Giles, a former Scotland Yard document expert, confirmed her instruction was to authenticate the diaries without recourse to modern scientific testing. She was not instructed to produce a formal report of forensic standard for a court of law. Giles exposed her own bias by falsely alleging that Collins had held the diaries were authentic. Tilzey writes that Alfred Noyes saw the diaries when Noyes clearly stated he had seen only police typescripts. Tilzey continues ‘Irish Republican leader Michael Collins who inspected them in 1921 and was satisfied that they were genuine.’ No source is given for this lie; Collins saw two diaries on February 6, 1922. There is no evidence that he thought them genuine.

35 – Prolific propagandist and forgery denier Jeffrey Dudgeon made an attempt in October 2024 to demonstrate the material existence of manuscript diaries in 1916. In the pages of Village magazine he alleged that both US ambassador Page and Congo missionary Harris were shown manuscript diaries in 1916. This is false. Home Office file 144/23481 states that ‘After the dismissal of the appeal a typescript copy was shown, on the Home Secretary’s instructions, to Mr. (later Sir John) Harris …’ It does not state that Page saw manuscript diaries but confirms he received photographs of typescripts. In the following edition of Village this author exposed Dudgeon’s chicanery and he fell silent. To date no-one has furnished evidence which demonstrates the existence of the diaries in 1916. There is no evidence.

36–38 In 2016 former Attorney General Michael McDowell lectured his legal colleagues on the authenticity of the diaries by presenting an incoherent series of non-sequiturs and hopelessly muddled speculations and assertions. ’… the British Minister to Norway alerted the Foreign Office to evidence that Casement was an active homosexual in late 1914. He cited the statements of Adler Christensen and of certain other Norwegian sources confirming Casement’s homosexual activity.’ This is entirely false. There was no such evidence and Christensen made no such statements. Findlay did not cite ‘other Norwegian sources’ at any time. McDowell goes on ‘He was, on Casement’s account, promised £5000 by the British to have Casement “knocked on the head’. This too is false. The account of this bribery is an official note on legation stationery in Findlay’s hand promising Christensen £5,000 for information leading to Casement’s arrest. The sum was authorised by Whitehall. Copy of Findlay’s bribe note is held in NLI.

39–40 Inglis is probably the most subtle and pernicious of those who have lied about Casement. He did not hesitate to cite Casement texts which he had altered to deceive his readers. Casement’s poem Quo Vadis of 1906 attracted Inglis because its second stanza lent itself to a minor manipulation which indicated a forbidden desire. The altered stanza appears on page 404 of his 1974 edition; the alteration concerns a single preposition. Robert Kee reproduced this lie in 1994. (See page 12 of Decoding False History.) Another lie appears on page 439 where Inglis writes ‘The other [diary] was a copy of his Putumayo diary which he made for the use of the Select Committee …’ This is false. Casement did not make a copy of his Putumayo diary. Inglis claimed Casement with-held the original document and sent a cleaned-up copy to the Committee. Casement’s covering letter sent on 27 January, 1913 with the original diary contains this sentence; ‘Naturally there is in it something I should not wish anyone to see-but then it is as it stands.’ Inglis then altered the sentence and published ‘Naturally there is in it [the original diary] something I should not wish anyone else to see.’ Correspondence in Rhodes House with chairman Roberts is unambiguous.

41-42 Historian Michael Laffan contributed the Casement entry in the authoritative Dictionary of Irish Biography. In referring to the diaries he wrote ‘Eventually in 2002 forensic examination confirmed their authenticity to general (although not universal) satisfaction.’ This is false. There was no forensic examination in 2002 or at any other time. Giles was not asked to produce a forensic report to court standards. Secondly, the Giles report did not confirm authenticity of the diaries since its conclusion simply expresses an opinion, not a proven fact.

43 – Inglis’ book presented a new version of Christensen’s first visit to the British legation in 1914. This entirely false version was taken as fact by almost all Casement authors because it created the vital legend of betrayal. B.L. Reid in 1976 wrote ‘In his first account of these events, sent to Sir Edward Grey on 31 October 1914, Findlay wrote that Christensen had simply presented himself at the door of the British Legation at 79 Drammensvein in the late afternoon of the twenty- ninth’. However, Findlay’s letter of the 31 st does not contain this apparently paraphrased statement attributed to him by Reid. Findlay’s letter says ‘The man called at the Legation about 11 a.m. and asked to see me alone. He went over much the same ground as he had covered with Mr Lindley on Thursday evening. There is no reference to Christensen’s arrival on the early afternoon (not evening) of 29 October. Reid lied to his readers by falsely attributing his own false account to Findlay. Obviously Findlay’s letter refers to his first meeting with Christensen on the morning of 30 October.

44 – 50 The account published by Ó Síocháin in 2008 is even more duplicitous in his desire to reinforce the original Inglis invention of betrayal. Ó Síocháin gets all basic facts wrong and by omission he lies at least seven times. There was no ‘British legation account’ and no evidence that Christensen was asked to return next day and no ‘information on Casement’s homosexuality’ in Lindley’s memo. Indeed Ó Síocháin avoids reference to the memo and his chicanery is easily exposed by the following seven undisputed facts: 1- Christensen did not betray Casement when the Oscar 11 was boarded, 2 – he did not blackmail Casement who had a large sum of money, 3 – he informed Casement of all his legation visits, 4 – he gave Casement the ‘earnest money’ from Findlay, 5 – he persisted for two months with Findlay to obtain the written bribe, 6 – he did not betray Casement when he obtained the bribe, 7 – he at once surrendered the written bribe to Meyer in Berlin. None of these crucial facts is reported by Ó Síocháin. Finally, FO letters to Findlay in 1915 clearly state that no betrayal took place.