Decoding Casement – The Podcast
Author Paul R. Hyde reveals how the long controversy about the homophobic black diaries has been sustained by systematic duplicity, misinformation and propaganda. By exposing the incoherent, illogical nature of this toxic controversy, he shows how the dominant narrative of authenticity is deeply irrational. Many of the facts and circumstances related in this podcast will be unknown to listeners; these include the origin of the scandal long before Casement’s arrest, the secret offer in 1965 to give the diaries to the Irish government, the dishonest role of the most influential biographer Brian Inglis. A powerful conclusive proof of forgery based on strict logical necessity discovered in 2024 is also outlined. These are some of the things about the diaries which you have not been allowed to know. https://villagemagazine.ie/the-devil-and-mr-roger-casement/
My name is Paul Hyde and I am the author of Anatomy of a lie, which is the controversial investigation of the notorious diaries attributed to Roger Casement. Today I want to discuss the accumulated evidence which shows that the diaries are not authentic. Ten years ago I began this research by hunting for evidence of authenticity because there was and still is a vast consensus for authenticity. I must say that I found no evidence at all to prove the diaries were written by Casement. What I did discover convinced me that the diaries are forgeries. So the scope of this podcast is to tell you the facts which until now you have not been allowed to know.
I have to say that this is certainly a most toxic controversy which has lost none of its poison in over a hundred years. One example is that in 2016 at a conference in California a well-known Irish academic publicly announced that people who believed in forgery should be lynched. I think that threat referred to me since I had just published three articles about the diaries. Again when Anatomy of a lie was published in April 2019 two Irish academics who have published on Casement complained to the publisher who felt threatened that one of them might take legal action against his company. For safety he decided to withdraw the book from sale so that the book launch was abandoned. No legal action was taken perhaps because the person already had a difficult reputation and had published defamatory remarks for which he had been compelled to apologise and pay compensation. The other professor who complained later admitted in writing that he had not read Anatomy of a lie. Further evidence of the poisonous hostility is that not a single Irish newspaper has reviewed my book while the most recent Casement biography this year has been favourably reviewed by all major Irish papers despite the fact that it has nothing new to say.
Anyway, to start I want to explain something about the diaries that has escaped the attention of almost everyone – these diaries are without doubt extremely homophobic documents; they portray the diarist as emotionally unstable, obsessed with the male sex organ, driven by overpowering sexual hunger, as a promiscuous pederast and a habitual exploiter of prostitutes. Regardless of whether the diaries are genuine or forged the diarist is a totally distasteful person often close to being pathologically disturbed. If forged, then this revolting portrait was what was intended by those who composed the narrative. Readers of the police typescripts were expected to be disgusted and indeed they were. If genuine, Casement recorded himself as a shameless promiscuous pederast happy to pay for gratification. And this despite the fact that he was considered prudish by those who knew him.
However, it is doubtful that many people today have read the diaries in great detail if only because they are exceedingly tedious and repetitive. And as homophobic documents they are certainly offensive to most homosexuals today since the image presented is wholly negative and does not minimally correspond to how the great majority of homosexuals behaved at the time or how they behave today.
But there is some sick reasoning here. Although the diaries themselves are clearly homophobic documents portraying a predatory pederast and exploiter of prostitutes, it is nonetheless alleged that believing them to be forgeries is homophobic. The pederast exploiter of prostitutes in the diaries is deeply offensive to homosexuals today – it is a caricature of homosexuals as immoral, priapic predators incapable of normal human affections or relationships and corrupt outsiders to the human family. The diarist is victim of an abnormal obsession with the male organ and this pathological disorder leads him to constantly seek intimate carnal acts with total strangers. By any standards the diarist is not a normal homosexual being incapable of self control, ordinary discretion and awareness.
Totally misrepresenting homosexuals as pathologically disturbed, this caricature is intrinsically homophobic and this is revealed above all in how the caricature was used in 1916 when the police typescripts were shown to journalists, politicians, and other influential persons. The point is that this vile portrait was false in 1916 and remains false today. Attitudes to homosexuality have certainly altered since 1916 but the grotesque caricature in the diaries has not changed. The diarist remains a pederast obsessed with penises and a promiscuous exploiter of prostitutes. Homosexuals today do not share far less condone this kind of disturbed behaviour.
Those who believe the diaries are authentic are blind to this virulent homophobia; their priority is a desire to see only their own reflection as tolerant liberals by ignoring the negative caricature. This produces a remarkable paradox; by endorsing the diaries as authentic they are unwittingly endorsing the homophobia in the diaries.
I want now to talk about the first major discovery I made in 2016 and which remains un-refuted as a proof of forgery. To put it as simply as possible, there is no independent evidence to show that the black diaries now held in the British archives actually existed during Casement’s lifetime. I stress the word independent because there is police evidence, papers claiming the bound diaries were held in Scotland Yard. No-one but a fool would propose the police were impartial, independent. Casement was for them a most wanted, public enemy number one. It is verified that a number of independent persons were shown police typescripts in May and June 1916 and were told the typed pages were official copies of handwritten diaries found in Casement’s luggage.
How many were shown these typescripts is not known but an estimate of perhaps fifty is reasonable. They include church people, journalists, editors, politicians. Even the King, George, was shown typescripts only. But while these persons saw the typescripts, there is no evidence that any of them were shown the bound diaries now held in British archives at Kew.
This discovery forms chapter 4 of Anatomy of a lie and no-one has challenged it since first published in Village magazine in 2016. Why did Thomson and Hall not show the diaries?
A second dimension is the fact that the major books on Casement, those by Inglis, MacColl, Ó Síocháin, Sawyer and Reid amount to over two thousand pages and collectively represent a half century of research – but nowhere in these books is there a single reference to any independent person being shown any of the bound diaries in 1916. At this point I’ll read a few lines from Anatomy of a lie – ‘It is not to be believed that these authors after decades of research overlooked this crucial aspect. If they found instances of the diaries being shown during that period, it would seem that they withheld that vital information from their readers. Since this is not credible, we must assume that none of them found any instances of the diaries being shown …’
This circumstance is extraordinary by any standards – neither in these books nor in official papers is there any record of the diaries allegedly held in Scotland Yard being shown to anyone. The question is therefore not about forgery or authenticity but about the material existence of the diaries. Until their existence in 1916 is proven there are no grounds for believing that the police typescripts are copies of anything original.
Let’s turn now to the second major problem – the provenance of the diaries and here the incoherence of authenticity reaches critical mass. Where did the diaries come from? Well, no-one seems to know. Four top officials gave no less than seven contradictory accounts. I repeat – there are seven conflicting accounts of provenance. Police chief Basil Thomson gave four confused stories, the director of public prosecutions gave another, Casement’s prosecutor Smith gave yet another and in 1959 the Home Secretary Butler supplied the seventh which contradicted the others. This last became the official account of provenance. Now in a court of law, one credible account would if verified be enough to close the matter.
Two equally credible accounts would cause problems. But seven versions would certainly close the matter for the court. None would be accepted as credible. The details of the seven versions can be found in Anatomy of a lie.
The fact that there are conflicting versions is evidence that the state had no documentary evidence sufficient to prove that the diaries came into police possession in 1916. Indeed there is no external evidence to demonstrate that the diaries believed to be in state possession were actually in state possession at that time.
Yet another problem is that the official version given in 1959 to the House of Commons is not accepted by a large number of those who believe the diaries are authentic. These people hold that the diaries were found in Casement’s luggage at least a year before his arrest in 1916. Therefore these supporters of authenticity believe that the Home Secretary lied to parliament when he announced the luggage had been delivered to Scotland Yard in April 1916.
Let’s look at another remarkable circumstance, namely the existence of the police typescripts. The question here is obvious. If the police held the bound diaries in Scotland Yard why did they go to the trouble of preparing the typescripts? It would have been easier, quicker and cheaper to simply photograph the pages of the diaries. That would have taken two days at most whereas the typing occupied several weeks.
Photographs would have been highly convincing as evidence because they present a faithful replica of an original whereas a typed page is not evidence that it is a copy of any original.
There are references to some photographs being made and shown but in every case we find that the photographs were of the typescripts and not of the diary pages.
This was the case in July 1916 when Walter Page, US ambassador asked for evidence to bring back to President Wilson. Basil Thomson gave him two photographs of typescript pages.
None of these photographs have been seen since. We can conclude that if any photographs had been made of handwritten diary pages, those photographs would have certainly been preserved as valuable evidence of the existence of the diaries at that time. Since there are no such photographs it is clear that none were made. When this absence of photographic evidence is placed beside the absence of any independent report of the bound diaries being shown in 1916, and the absence of any rational explanation for these circumstances, the conclusion cannot be avoided – there were no diaries in police custody at that time. Since these arguments and evidence were first put in the public domain in 2016 no-one has challenged them far less refuted them. There simply is no independent evidence for the material existence of the diaries before Casement was killed. It is not credible that the intelligence officers of MI5, the Admiralty and the Metropolitan Police possessed the diaries but declined or forgot to show them to anyone. This evidence by itself is more than sufficient to resolve the controversy and terminate it. But it has not done so.
I said at the beginning that this is a highly toxic subject and pointed out that to argue the diaries are forgeries is today considered evidence of homophobia, a convenient way of discrediting the person without producing evidence or counter argument. I am reminded of a remarkable dictum of the great dean Swift whose lucidity and integrity are both admirable and rare. He said ‘It is useless to try to argue a man out of something he was never argued into.’
Not only is it toxic but there is also something deeply irrational about this controversy when the dominant narrative can be shown to be so incoherent, illogical and yet is believed by so many. Other factors have conditioned this extraordinary resistance to a very obvious conclusion.
They include sexual politics, national sentiments, historical shame, revisionism, misinformation, confusion and propaganda.
I want now to explain the origin of the homosexual scandal, to reveal how it began, and where and who was responsible. It did not begin in 1916 with the diaries since as I explained these did not yet exist. Nor did it begin with the police typescripts in 1916. The scandal only became public in 1916 with the showing of the typescripts. We have to go back to October 1914 when Casement passed through Oslo on his way to Berlin. On the evening of 29th October British minister Findlay at the legation in Christiania – now called Oslo – placed a four-page handwritten document into the diplomatic bag with a short covering letter addressed to Foreign Minister Edward Grey in Whitehall. These papers reached London the following day and were at once passed to British intelligence. The main document was described as a memorandum written on 29th October by legation first secretary Francis Lindley who had that afternoon interviewed Casement’s servant Christensen.
The text of this memorandum is published in my second Casement book Decoding False History which is available through my website. This memorandum is the origin of the scandal. It contains the following words referring to the un-named Christensen: ‘I understood that his relations with the Englishman were of an improper character’. The Englishman was Casement. This insinuation by Lindley was of special interest to MI5 officer Major Frank Hall who made a typed copy of the memo for circulation and noted ‘I am awaiting further information on this point, and also as to his habits, natural and un-natural!)’. Hall was a native of Warrenpoint in County Down and had special responsibility for Ireland. The memo had arrived precisely where Findlay had intended – in the hands of Casement’s sworn enemies.
So the seeds of the scandal were set about eighteen months before Casement was arrested and interrogated. Yet in those 18 months the British authorities kept it secret. Neither Findlay nor Lindley in Oslo had ever seen or spoken to Casement but the insinuation was to prove lethal in time.
The memo itself is a wretched and hastily improvised joint effort by Findlay and Lindley, with lots of cancellations, corrections and interpolations. Its shabby untidy appearance betrays that it was hurriedly concocted at the last moment for courier dispatch that evening to Whitehall.
Lindley met Christensen at around 2pm on 29th October in the legation. Christensen’s account suggests the meeting was relatively short, less than thirty minutes. His account of these events relates that he was approached in the hotel by an Englishman who engaged him in friendly conversation. Casement had advised Christensen to be on guard and observant. When outside the hotel with the stranger, a large car drew up and he was invited to get in. Christensen was not apprehensive but he was curious. The car took him and the stranger to a large residence some distance away. He was ushered to the first floor where the meeting with Lindley took place. These events in the following weeks became what was later called The Findlay Affair which was badly mismanaged by both Casement and Findlay. A second version of this first meeting alleges that Christensen went alone to the legation in order to betray Casement. This British version was invented in the late 1960s as I’ll explain in a moment.
No evidence is ever provided for this version and the verified facts exclude it categorically. Firstly, the memorandum concocted by Lindley and Findlay contains no proposal by Christensen to betray Casement. If such a proposal was made it would have been noted. Since there is no evidence of it in the memo this contradicts the betrayal allegation and explains why the memo was effectively suppressed with only one author referring to it and who cites only the insinuation.
Secondly, the only money Christensen ever received according to Findlay himself was to cover his taxi expenses. Thirdly, after Findlay on 3rd January finally gave Christensen the bribe written on legation notepaper, Christensen passed the document on 5th January to the German official Meyer in Berlin. In so doing he surrendered any possibility of ever extracting the bribe from Findlay.
Christensen had ample opportunity over many months to betray Casement for money or other advantage but no betrayal took place. The story of a treacherous Christensen plotting against Casement was invented by Brian Inglis in the late 1960s and it is very widely believed even today. Significantly, no other author mentions the memo although it is a crucial document. For a rigorous demolition of this propaganda I advise listeners to read chapter eleven of Anatomy of a lie.
Brian Inglis is the only author to mention this memo and as I said a moment ago he cites only the thirteen words of the insinuation. The memo is difficult to find in the archives at Kew partly because it does not look like a memorandum and does not have the usual identifiers from x and to Y. Indeed I had to rely on the assistance of a specialist researcher at Kew to obtain it. When the document is closely scrutinised anomalies and incongruities and a major contradiction emerge and reveal it to be an invention by Findlay which he hurriedly dictated to Lindley that evening.
Since I have just mentioned Inglis it would now be appropriate to talk about the most influential book about Casement. Brian Inglis’ historical biography of 1973 was convincing, detailed, clever and false. His study rapidly became the standard biography upon which later generations of readers and authors formed their ‘understanding’ of Casement and the diaries controversy. Inglis deserves the dubious recognition as being the founding father of the psychobiography portraying Casement as a dysfunctional homosexual of confused loyalties, a heroic and lonely dreamer with a secret life and a fractured personality – it is a portrait which is still peddled and we find it in the most recent biography Broken Archangel which is more or less a clone of the Inglis book.
Inglis remains unsurpassed for the subtlety of his deceptions. The absence of any source notes helps to conceal those deceptions by obliging unconvinced readers to travel to Dublin to check the notes in The National Library.
But even this is frustrated because the usual reference numbers in the text are missing so that the reader cannot know in advance if there is a source on the list in Dublin. I have never heard of any historical biography without source notes.
At the centre of the web of deception spun out by Inglis we find his portrayal of Casement’s servant Christensen who becomes a key figure in the new template. Foreign Office documents released in 1967 were available to Inglis and these reveal the role played by British Minister Findlay in Oslo. The documented facts in those files which I have examined contradict the Inglis portrayal of Christensen as a treacherous villain plotting to betray Casement. On the contrary, the Foreign Office documents show clearly that Christensen followed Casement’s instructions faithfully in misleading Findlay with false information, a strategy which finally produced Findlay’s handwritten bribe of a £5,000 reward for information leading to Casement’s capture. Five thousand sterling in 1916 amounts to some three million today. The bribe was formally authorized by the Foreign Office.
Today’s consensus for authenticity is largely due to Inglis whose thoroughly dishonest book has gone unchallenged and has conditioned the discourse for over fifty years. It is a remarkable example of how low-level propaganda masquerading as impartial biography can accomplish long-term results. No-one should underestimate the achievement of Inglis which can best be measured by the number of distinguished Irish academics—mostly historians—who have fallen under the spell of his deceptive template.
Inglis exploited logical fallacies, selective framing, omission, innuendo, altered documents, false attributions and simple lies. All of these crimes of intellectual dishonesty can be found in the Inglis study. Honest historians and biographers do not present as true sources those documents which are disputed, or which have suspect provenance; and they do not rely on documents which have not been proven to be authentic. For example, rather than base his 1910 account on Casement’s extensive handwritten Amazon Journal in the NLI, Inglis used the disputed Black Diaries as sources for that year and for the other years 1903 and 1911. Thus he ignored an authentic source in favour of a disputed source and by so doing he eliminated even the benefit of the doubt which makes Casement the victim of his biography rather than his subject.
A further example of his perfidy occurs in his account of Christensen’s meeting with Findlay on 30th October, 1914 where he writes ‘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’. Here there are four deceits. Christensen did not hand over any material. Findlay did not take possession of any letter from Christensen. The letter mentioned had not yet been written. The letter does not state ‘he is a treasure’.
This letter was written later in November and was correctly quoted in MacColl’s biography of 1956. It was one of the fake letters Casement prepared to mislead Findlay. The original quotation reads ‘he has been a treasure’. The shift in meaning is so subtle as to escape many but it did not escape Inglis who altered the text to manipulate his readers. No letter was handed over to Findlay and the relevant FO file does not contain such a letter. Nor did Findlay claim that anything was handed over. A simple change of tense from past to present altered the meaning from appreciation to one of compromising endearment.
A further example of Inglis deceit is found in the 1974 paperback when he replies to a reader asking why he made no reference at all to the 1910 Amazon Journal, the so-called white diary with no scandal in it. Having referred to the German diary, Inglis wrote; ‘The other was a copy of his Putumayo diary, which he made for the use of the Select Committee investigating the affair.
As he told the Chairman, he was sending the copy because ‘naturally there is in it (the original diary) something I should not wish anyone else to see.’
This is quite false and Casement did not write or send this sentence to the Chairman. Nor did Casement make a copy of the Putumayo diary. Inglis inserted the words in parenthesis and attributed those words to Casement. Categorical proof of this is found in the original letter of 27 January 1913 written by Casement to Chairman Roberts. ‘Naturally there is in it something I should not wish anyone to see – but then it is as it stands.’ This is the original sentence seen by Inglis in the Casement-Roberts Correspondence held in Rhodes House. Inglis altered the original by deleting the last seven words and a dash, adding three words in parenthesis and added the word ‘else’. In short, Inglis claims that Casement ‘confessed’ to Roberts that the document being sent was not the original. It was a risk Inglis felt he had to take in order to ‘explain’ his omission. Thus by falsifying his report of a genuine document, Inglis created yet another innuendo which has deceived countless thousands of readers.
The systematic pattern of deception—including the alteration of documents, selective framing, omissions and distortions and I have cited only a few of these – indicate a calculated intent to mislead. It follows that Inglis knew the diaries were not authentic. The proven exposure of his extensive deceit is therefore itself sufficient de facto evidence of his knowledge of forgery. Otherwise the deceit has no rationale.
Inglis was a respected even popular figure in British public life, a prolific author, journalist and television personality; his skill in verbal legerdemain allowed him to cover the traces of his lies. This in turn made it difficult to suspect him. Later authors have also contributed to the consensus but their works are conspicuously faithful to the Inglis model in respect of the diaries as authentic.
I’ll say something now about the handwriting investigations carried out on the diaries. The first thing to say is that all of these were done by British examiners who had been employed by the Home Office. The first in 1958 produced a 93 word internal report for a government Working Party which favoured authenticity but rather unconvincingly so that it was never published because of fears that another expert might not agree. A second investigation was done in 1993 for a BBC documentary; this too was a quick one day affair by a former Home Office employee who gave only a cautious verbal opinion using the vague term ‘correspond closely’. The caution can be explained by apprehension after the fiasco of the forged Hitler diaries a decade earlier. Handwriting experts had become nervous. A third investigation in 2002 was a more serious matter – this led to the controversial Giles Report which stated categorically that the diaries were genuine. The results were broadcast widely, joyfully and carelessly by the media and were hailed as scientific and forensic and definitive. When the hysteria faded, two US experts peer reviewed the Giles Report and criticized it for failing to demonstrate how the result was reached. One expert said it would not be accepted in a US court and was not publishable. The other expert independently described it as forensic junk science. But as a media event to promote authenticity the Giles Report was a great success. Listeners who would like to know more about the limitations of handwriting examination can refer to chapter three of Anatomy of a lie.
Now let’s look at what Irish historians say about the controversy. Simple answer is most of them say nothing and when rarely they say something it is at once clear they know very little beyond what they have read in Inglis and in the other books. It is a verified fact that none of them have done any research at any time. This is confirmed by distinguished UCD historian Diarmaid Ferriter. He wrote to me in September 2021 to state that Irish historians have not done primary research on the diaries. Professor Laffan of UCD also wrote to say that he did not know of any Irish historians who think the diaries are forgeries.
Therefore this means that all Irish historians believe in authenticity without having done any research. How can this be? How can they reach that conclusion if they have not investigated in depth? The only answer I can propose is that they are satisfied by the Inglis study of 1973 which is strange because the Inglis book contains no source references whatsoever. The result is that nothing reported as a fact in Inglis’ book can be checked. Historians always provide source references as standard practice but there are none in Inglis’ book. Yet this bald fact does not make the historians suspicious.
The fact is that historians, like politicians, do not want to touch the diaries, the topic of forgery is too toxic. However, one professor of history has recently spoken about Casement and the diaries. Patrick Geoghegan of TCD who is presenter of the Talking History radio broadcast interviewed the author of a new psychobiography entitled Broken Archangel. Professor Geoghegan is an enthusiastic forgery denier who digested his Inglis long ago. Conspicuous in this interview with author Philipps was how the professor failed to correct or even comment on the many errors of historical and biographical fact in the book and also ignored seriously misleading claims. For example MacNeill was not head of the IRB and was not even a member. Casement did not plan a German invasion of Ireland. Castlereagh was never prime minister of Britain. No-one knows if Casement’s parents were alcoholics. The diaries have never been subjected to scientific testing of any kind; in fact such testing is explicitly prohibited by policy of the UK archives.
Philipps’ book offers nothing new; it’s little more than a clone of Inglis. He recites the old fiction of Casement betrayed by the treacherous Christensen – ‘his lover and companion for 18 months’. The alleged homosexuality is taken for granted. He claims the Giles handwriting examination was a scientific analysis of the diaries instructed by Tony Blair. All this dishonest misinformation is eagerly endorsed by Geoghegan rather than assessed, interrogated, amended. Hardly surprising when the professor contributes his own home-made gaffes such as Casement planning what he calls ‘a doomed scheme’ for a German invasion of Ireland – this is pure nonsense. Geoghegan also says the US ambassador was shown photographs of the diaries which is false –the ambassador was given two photos of police typescripts. If Geoghegan had done any research or if he had read Anatomy of a lie he would have known this. But like other Irish historians he has done no research and simply repeats the lies originally told by Inglis.
In April Philipps was asked if he had read Anatomy of a lie and he claimed unconvincingly he had never heard of it. But even if true, then he foolishly admits he is not aware of recent research. Unlike previous authors including Ó Síocháin, Vargas Llosa and Jordan Goodman, this novice Philipps did not even bother to consult the leading Casement expert Angus Mitchell.
Since this book has nothing new to offer, one asks why it was commissioned and published. I think the timing strongly suggests the most probable answer. Philipps says he spent some four years on the book which indicates he completed it in 2023. Four years takes us back to 2019 when Anatomy of a lie was published. So he was commissioned when my book was first on sale or even before. Was this a coincidence made to happen therefore not a coincidence? What interest would Penguin Books have in commissioning a very banal biography from a Casement novice as soon as my book appeared? This is a nothing-new biography but it has received saturation marketing in Ireland. It’s been widely and positively reviewed and yet conspicuously has nothing to say about the diaries. Is it that he cannot engage with the diaries because the issue is now too hot? Too much contrary evidence in the public domain so he cannot engage with Anatomy of a lie so that he claims he has never heard of it?
Moving on, I have something now that I think will be new to most listeners – not many people know the following because it has been kept secret until quite recently. Soon after the state funeral of Casement’s remains in 1965 Irish diplomats were discreetly informed that the Wilson government was willing to consign the diaries to the Lemass government.
This surprise proposal caused some perplexity and caution. Accepting the poisoned chalice would cause problems without easy solutions. If people in Ireland knew that the diaries were in Dublin’s custody, demands for testing would be made with unforeseeable results. Accepting the diaries might be seen as acknowledging authenticity – why accept documents you believe are false? If tested and proven to be forged, the British would be offended. The Lemass government could not contemplate proving them authentic.
Many officials in government at that time believed the diaries were forgeries. However, not everyone was convinced of forgery. The director of the National Library, Richard Hayes, known for his British sympathies, was of the opinion that Casement had indeed been homosexual. Hayes was in a special position in relation to Britain; during WW2 he had worked as a code breaker and cryptographer with Ireland’s G2 Intelligence, and with MI5. His remarkable talent enabled him to decode the Nazi Görtz cipher which had defeated both US and British experts. But when he turned to Casement and the diaries, his undoubted talent for decoding seemed to abandon him.
In this quandary officials in the Department of External Affairs consulted Hayes who had amassed a great quantity of Casement materials in The National Library. Although the war was long over, Hayes still had contacts in MI5 and these assured him of the authenticity of the diaries. Hayes had earlier failed to find in Casement’s extensive writings any traces of sexual attraction to women and from this he concluded that Casement had been homosexual. Given that Hayes was widely regarded as something of a genius, his opinion, though abjectly stupid, carried some weight.
It certainly influenced policy and thinking about the diaries from then on. The Lemass government decided not to formally ask for the diaries and the matter disappeared into official silence where it had come from. Hayes’ opinion was officially recorded at the time which demonstrates that it had indeed been influential in inducing official Ireland to leave the diaries question unanswered.
But Dublin’s refusal to formally request the diaries discreetly offered by Wilson was understood in London to mean that Dublin would continue to believe they were forgeries. It was this circumstance which made it necessary to convince Dublin of authenticity. Political goodwill was important as both states were seeking entry to the EEC.
At this point the idea of a ‘definitive’ biography was proposed most probably by the Information Research Department the propaganda unit of the British Foreign Office. Inglis was the ideal author; he was reliably pro-British and he had Irish connections, top level experience, and was a well-connected figure in both the UK and Ireland and he had an interest in history. His publishing commission coincided with the 1967 release of FO files on Casement after 50 years which meant that Inglis had first sight of top secret documents unseen since 1916. Inglis submitted his book to Hodder in 1972 after some five years research & writing. It went on sale in April 73. A month later it was launched on RTE’s Late Late Show by Ireland’s top TV personality, Gay Byrne.
Inglis was present and with Byrne’s sycophantic blessing the consensus for authenticity was guaranteed from that evening on. Propaganda had taken over and the state’s cowardly betrayal of Casement was under way. It has been unstoppable ever since.
I have commented at length on the Inglis biography because it is the most influential of the many books on Casement. But there is one other book I think deserves attention. In 2002 independent Belfast researcher Jeffrey Dudgeon published his extraordinary volume with The Belfast Press which is wholly owned by Dudgeon. This weighty book includes the texts of all three diaries and the ledger. There’s also a kind of guided commentary embedded so as to leave no space for skepticism or questions.
By any standards Dudgeon’s book is unique being neither a historical study, nor a biography nor an analytical investigation but all of these and none of them. There is a lot of fiction in it and a clear political bias. The writing is confused by conflicting registers and curious syntax. It is also uncontrollably speculative and his intrusive commentary makes it totally self verifying.
Nonetheless, it has become influential not because it is a balanced and honest book but because the author is a recognized pioneer in homosexual rights. This fact seems to induce people to believe what he writes and endorse his book.
I have by now managed to read perhaps about fifty pages and some months ago, I was intrigued to note that a sentence printed in the original book had been deleted in the 2019 Kindle edition. This discovery led to something I never imagined I would find – namely a conclusive logical proof of the forgery of the diaries. Let me explain. Most court verdicts are the result of a probability calculus and are expressed as being beyond all reasonable doubt. On the basis of the verified evidence this is the most probable truth in this question having tested all other possibilities. In my research into the diaries I found around ten scenarios of this probability type. For example chapter nine in my book investigates the Millar story and shows how this was manufactured by MI5’s Frank Hall.
This was possible because there was an anomaly or an incoherence in the original story in the diaries. Another example is Commander Clipperton’s revelation of 1965, where we have a retired naval officer who had known Captain Hall during the war spontaneously revealing his knowledge of the forgery. This was stress tested for several months before I was certain of its veracity. However, there is another kind of proof which has no probability dimension; it is purely logical and rests on the irrefutable truth of its premises. From those premises only one conclusion is possible. The premises alone determine the conclusion with logical certainty. Two plus two cannot produce any other number but four.
The sentence originally published by Dudgeon for some seventeen years was as follows: ‘It is possible that Millar bought the motor bike from Corbally and that Casement was repaying him as a separate note listing expenditure simply reads “Millar 25.0.0”.’ This sentence published by Dudgeon from 2002 to 2019 then deleted fatally compromises his overall endeavour to persuade us of authenticity.
It signifies serious confusion; Dudgeon does not know who paid for Millar’s motorcycle. It also signifies that he admits the possibility that Casement did not pay Corbally as alleged in the ledger so that the ledger would be a forgery. This confusion signals that Dudgeon is unable to make sense of the ledger and consequently has lost faith in his project.
The overall context of all this is an alleged affair between Casement and a young Belfast bank clerk called Millar; Casement did indeed know Millar and his mother through shared friends and acquaintances in Antrim but they had little in common politically. The alleged affair features in the 1910 diary and in the 1911 ledger with events located in and around Belfast. The story also involves a motorcycle owned by Millar in 1911 which according to the ledger was paid for by Casement.
That ‘separate note’ of a £25 payment to Millar is a single handwritten page in the National Library described as Rough Financial Notes by Roger Casement. It is inscribed on both sides with records of outgoing payments. Many of the ten undated payments record substantial amounts so that Millar’s £25 is not exceptional. The file also contains fourteen used cheque books and in many cheque stubs we find comparable payments; but the file has no used cheque book for the period of the listed payments. Casement certainly wrote cheques in that period but that used cheque book and the dated stubs has disappeared.
A stub recording the ledger payment to Corbally would be conclusive evidence of Casement’s payment for Millar’s motor bike. But there is no such stub and no used cheque book.
The detailed analysis of this discovery was published as The Devil & Mr. Casement in Village online in April this year and later also in print. Listeners can check either or they can find the article on the Decoding Casement website. The article clearly reveals a double contradiction afflicting the note and the ledger regardless of which was written first. Either sequence produces contradiction which signals there is a hidden assumption which is responsible for the contradictions. That prior assumption is that the two records were written by one person. As soon as we consider that the records were written by two persons, not by one, the contradictions are eliminated. Since the NLI note was indeed written by Casement – and Dudgeon admits this – it follows that the ledger entry was written by a second person, by someone other than Casement and the ledger is, therefore, a forgery. In short, Casement’s authentic record of payment to Millar is a de facto negation of the alleged ledger payment.
Of course, Dudgeon protests that the note and the ledger record the same thing in two places – a single payment. But this is evidently untrue since the payments name different recipients. And for 17 years Dudgeon himself openly accepted in his book that he did not know who had paid for the motor bike thereby casting doubt on the ledger. Now when he clearly sees he is trapped by a proof based on rigorous logical necessity, he launches into further futile speculation hoping to rescue a hypothesis which failed decades ago. This ‘rescue’ is yet another vain hypothesis. Plainly, he now says, the sale involved other people.
If ‘plainly’ means obviously, this involvement was not obvious to Dudgeon for the last 22 years and only became ‘obvious’ to him after reading the article in April.
But it is now too late for Dudgeon to rescue his position which he himself compromised many years ago. With his fatal sentence ‘It is possible that Millar bought the motor bike from Corbally …’ one critical observer commented “He has hanged himself.”
I’m going to sign off now. I hope listeners now have a better understanding of how decades of deceit and propaganda have manipulated this story. Anatomy of a lie contains more evidence of forgery and also the website decoding-casement.com. Thank you for listening.
Review comments on Anatomy of a lie: Decoding Casement
“It’s a fine piece of scholarship in a fine style. What impressed me was the detail, the overwhelming detail that demolishes the legitimacy of the Black Diaries; it’s definitive, unanswerable.” Niall Antoin Gillespie. TCD.
“I am just bewildered by how the wool has been pulled over the eyes of so many academics, historians, and the public about the Black Diaries. Myself included! Well done on such an eye-opening book.” Meadhbh Murphy, Cultural Heritage Collection, UCD.
“Anyone interested in the tragic heroism of Roger Casement, and the disgraceful traducing of his name, will be riveted … Hyde shines a harsh light on all the apologists for the authenticity of the diaries. I found Anatomy of a lie immensely readable, eye-opening.” Angela Long, journalist.
“It is an amazing book and long overdue.” Honor O’ Brolchain.
“A thousand thanks…to you … What a phrase “so that evidence could be manufactured”—indeed!… I’ll be careful to quote your work which confirms many hunches (and convictions) I have had. ” Professor Declan Kiberd, Notre Dame University.
“ … a superbly argued demolition of the propaganda surrounding Casement and The Black Diaries. I marvel at the cosy compliance of so many academic historians, Irish as well as British, with the powers that be.” Chris Mooney, UCD.
“ … held me spellbound. Your critical analysis exceeds … my own above average ability in that endeavour … most objective and unbiased … impeccable in its forensic thesis…” Marcel Matley. US Forensic Document Examiner.
“From a legal point of view the forensic analysis was compelling, going to the very core of the issue … The research was in my opinion excellent and arguments convincing.” Brian Leahy, SC.
“It’s very detailed scholarship – you make a persuasive case for your argument – I was certainly persuaded.” Professor Adam Gearey, Law Faculty, Birkbeck College.
“It is fascinating and scholarly. I am convinced …” Professor Richard Kearney, Boston College.
“I enjoyed it … it is a very impressive piece of work.” Dr. Brian Ó Conchubhair, Associate Professor Notre Dame University.
“Hyde has also pulled apart the case made by … proponents of authenticity such as Brian Inglis and has exposed the undercover role of … Frank MacDermot in the 1957 publication of a forged poem in the Sunday Times … a strong and detailed case … it is forensic, non-polemic, and very convincing.” Dr. Martin Mansergh, former TD, Minister of State and government special advisor.
“I read your book last year and thought it was excellent … a remarkable account on the continuing controversy … Anatomy of a lie is a work of scholarship … a valuable contribution.” Jim O’Callaghan TD, Minister for Justice.
“… the book draws to a close a century of obfuscation, secrecy, and acres of academic and speculative waffle … very convincing. Your clarity and logic are first rate. You have broken it open at the fevered core. I find your reasoning and clarity immensely helpful … an arrow of light into the heart of darkness.” Dr. Angus Mitchell, University of Limerick.
“Anyone who checks the British government files cited in Anatomy of a lie will be compelled to conclude that the diaries were forged after Casement’s death. It is those Home Office and Foreign Office files which prove that Inglis made false claims in his 1973 book to establish the false authenticity consensus. A careful check of Findlay’s official correspondence of October 1914 to March 1915 will reveal there is no record of a betrayal by Christensen as alleged by Inglis; a check of the cited Home Office files of 1959 will reveal there is no witness testimony for the existence of the diaries in 1916. Those checks are sufficient to dispel any doubts about forgery.” Jack Lane, Aubane Historical Society.
“The sheer detail of Hyde’s exegesis is impressive and reveals, point by point, the contradictions, factual errors and shoddy work the intelligence officers … perpetrated in their effort to fit the spurious sexual allegation into the broader narrative … Hyde’s methodical research reveals the sheer perfidious mendacity of the British establishment …” Conor Lenihan, former TD & Minister of State.
“For too many years, we have lived with the falsified diaries; the lies and deceit are now comprehensively dispelled. At last we have clarity which shows how the story has been manipulated for decades in order to cover up the fact that there is no evidence for the diaries in 1916. I think this book will end the controversy about the diaries.” Tony Kenna, Sydney, Australia
“The case you make is thoroughly convincing. By the end of the book it was clear to me that there’s now a need for a new telling of the last few years of Casement’s life, recast in the light of the findings of your book.” Professor John Harris, UCL
“Anatomy of a lie is a forensic analysis that not only demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubt how Casement’s so-called black diaries are forgeries but also undermines the credibility of virtually all the established literature on this topic. Paul Hyde’s enlightening book totally overturns all we thought we knew.”Christopher B. Amazon review