“Broken Archangel, The Tempestuous Lives of Roger Casement” – A History Lecture by Author Roland Philips

Pioneering human rights campaigner, patriot, traitor romantic and LGBTQ+ martyr, Roger Casement is one of the 20th century’s most complex and compelling figures. Roland Philipps (author of A Spy Named Orphan) will give a lecture on his biography about this contradictory man, Broken Archangel: The Tempestuous Lives of Roger Casement.

In 1904, Casement became internationally celebrated for unearthing the grotesque, murderous violence of the Belgian Congo. Soon after he won even greater renown and a knighthood for his humanitarian work deep in the Amazon jungle.

But his internal fault lines ran deep: neither fully Irish nor English, baptised both Protestant and Catholic, desperate for love but forbidden intimacy, betrayed in his only significant relationship, he was of the English diplomatic establishment yet an outsider who fought for Irish nationhood. His final act in wartime Berlin – a doomed scheme to promote an invasion of Ireland – overwhelmed him, although his subsequent trial for treason brought him some resolution even as it took him to an unmarked prison grave.