Roger Casement, a hero of the Irish resistance to the UK or a traitor or a sexual exploiter of young boys many of them African, is the subject of a new biography. In A Rebel and a Traitor, Rory Carroll explores the tortured soul of Roger Casement — the British diplomat turned Irish revolutionary who was hanged at Pentonville in 1916.
He started as a national hero in Britain, exposing the slave economy and institutionalised savagery in the Belgian Congo while serving as a consular official. And repeated the exercise when consul general in Rio, reporting on Peru where local people laboured in bondage to rubber producers, with shootings, beheadings, and other abuses, all in the cause of foreign shareholders. He briefed US President Taft, inspired a papal encyclical against such wickedness and was knighted. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of him as “a man of the highest character — truthful, unselfish, one who is deeply respected by all who know him”.
But in 1914 his lifelong commitment to Irish home rule, the place of his birth, became his obsession. In New York he convinced the fanatical nationalists of Clan Na Gael that he was the right man to persuade the Germans to back an armed uprising against the British. Moving to Berlin, he attempted to raise an “Irish brigade” and sailed to Ireland on a German submarine on the eve of the Easter Rising. He was captured and transferred to London, incarcerated in the Tower and tried at the Old Bailey. During his trial his diaries were uncovered which described by his own account, the systemic sexual exploitation of very young boys, many of them African. On August 3, 1916, was hanged at Pentonville Prison. His remains were exhumed in 1965 and returned to Ireland for reburial, as befitted a hero of the Irish struggle for freedom.
He was born 1 September 1864 in Dublin and was a Sun (Moon) in Virgo in a determined trine to Pluto, opposition Eris (conflict and catalyst) square a pro-active and communicative Mars in Gemini. His Pluto was in a super-confident, anti-authoritarian opposition to Jupiter; and his Neptune in Libra opposed Saturn and Mercury in Libra giving him a drive to improve society. With Uranus in final degree Gemini in a can-be-fanatical and rebellious square to his Neptune and Mercury.
It’s a chart that really needs a birth time but there are two wide-ish yods both involving the Noth Node so he would be a central player in the spirit of the times.
When World War 1 broke out in 1914 tr Pluto was conjunct his Uranus sparking up his revolutionary fervour.
Here is Casement’s speculative chart. London, enemy, in 7th and Ireland, gloriied
in 10th. Algol always appears in hanging charts….his trans Algol, 25Taurus,
conjunct his natal IC of endings.
https://ibb.co/G452cpgF
Hi Martha, how did you assign London and Ireland within the chart? How does one assign other locations to the chart to see how they fit in with a personality?
Roger Casement was a complicated man. He was unfortunate that his trial and conviction, occurred at the time of crisis in the First World War (Verdun, the Somme).The diaries were used to defuse a campaign for mercy, but these were bloody times and life was cheap. A pity as he could have contributed to the post war Ireland.
“Attempts were made to suggest that his diaries were forgeries, concocted by the British government. Almost all modern historians, however, accept their authenticity.” From Times review.
I have just binned a ranting and raving comment. The anti-Republican feeling in Ireland still lights a fuse.
Thank you for the article on Roger Casement, Marjorie. I knew about his work in the Congo that helped bring the dark actions of the Belgians in Congo to light and that helped move the Congo from being the personal possession of the Belgian King to being a Belgian colony proper. But I had no idea about his sexual peccadilloes.
Did a quick Google search on his diaries and apparently it has always been quite controversial from the start as to whether the diaries were forged or not. My TIL (Today I Learnt) for the day.