1) The 1902 ‘Army Notebook’ is included in the collection of “diaries” that the British State prevented public access to until 1959 and restricted access up until 1995. These are collectively known as the Black Diaries. 

As indicated in previous articles the Diaries contain ‘authenticators’.  This is innocuous material which is factually correct; and the purpose of which is to ‘prove’ that the sexual material is authentic. 

Unlike the other four ‘diaries’, the ‘Army Notebook’ has no sexual material.  However, that does not mean it’s authentic.  Why would the British forge this notebook?   There are two possible reasons.  Firstly, to authenticate innocuous material in the other ‘diaries’ and secondly, to ‘authenticate’ the handwriting in the other diaries. 

Amazingly, Dr. Audrey Giles, in her 2002 report, used samples of handwriting from the innocuous parts of the Black Diaries to test the authenticity of handwriting of the sexual parts!  Does Tim really think that this is a valid test? 

It only proves—in so far as hand-writing experts can prove anything—that the innocuous parts were written by the same person that wrote the sexual parts of the diaries. 

2) I’m surprised that Tim accepts the authenticity of the Army Notebook—which was kept in secret by the British State—while he questions the authenticity of the document held by the National Library of Ireland (NLI) in which there was never restricted access. 

Errors occur in documents.  In evaluating the errors the researcher must decide if the errors are more likely to have been made by a forger or an authentic diarist.  Secondly, he must assess if the error reveals a malign intention. 

The NLI document lists total outgoings as being £10 greater than the sum of the individual items listed.  In my opinion a forger is less likely to make such a calculation error than an authentic diarist.  When referring to this, Tim is a little coy as to what the malign intention is that the error reveals. 

3) The motor cycle purchase is an example of a real event being used to ‘authenticate’ a dubious proposition (that Casement had a sexual relationship with Joseph Millar Gordon).  I accept the evidence of Gordon’s ownership but don’t believe the transaction had anything to do with Casement. 

I can think of numerous reasons for the ‘error’ that Tim refers to.  It’s possible that Corbally purchased another motorbike to replace the one he had sold to the motor dealer;   and a clerk registered the new ownership with the vehicle he sold, rather than the one he had bought—and then attempted to correct the error.  I find the alternative explanation of the police attempting to forge the register too implausible and elaborate.

4) I’ve dealt with the question of Casement’s relationship with ffrench in my reply to Jeffrey Dudgeon elsewhere in this magazine. 

5) I didn’t make great play of the discrepancy between the cash ledger and the NLI document.  My argument that Gordon bought the motorbike from a motor dealer – and therefore Casement could not have paid Corbally for the bike – does not depend on the authenticity of the NLI document.

John Martin