Dear IPR Editor,

Jack Lane in his reply to my letter (Irish Political Review, April 2026) makes a huge amount of my simple statement of fact that the typed versions of the diaries might have existed before the manuscripts. I can’t prove the negative, that they didn’t come first, but there is zero evidence that they did. In contrast, there is considerable, definitive evidence from official documents of the time (April-July 1916) that typed copies of manuscripts were made also that the US Ambassador was given “ photographs of two pages”. There were as well statements by private citizens that they saw manuscript material. These admittedly were rarely precise.

Jack states, “A resolution can only be found when there is verified evidence for each possibility so that readers can judge from that evidence.” In this remarkable statement he concedes that the theory of ‘typescripts first’ may be false. However he ensures I can’t win the dispute by defining ‘verified evidence’ as meaning anything but official documentation.

He also repeatedly says that the provision of typescripts to the DPP rather than the diaries themselves is inexplicable and proof of his theory that there were “no physical diaries then in existence”. The purpose behind typing six copies of the diaries was to provide a number of key players with copies to make it easy for them to read the material. It was a bureaucratic exercise. However he happens to be quite wrong on the point of the DPP. He did get provided with manuscripts. 

In a memo of 18 July 1916, Inspector Edward Parker of Scotland Yard wrote (TNA MEPO 2/10672), “I beg to report that at the request of Mr. Guy Stephenson, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, I went to the Treasury this afternoon and saw him, where he had in his possession Casement’s diary and ledger for 1911, which the Director of Public Prosecutions has asked for on Saturday last, 15^th instant, for information of the Attorney General and for use at the Court of Appeal if necessary. Whilst I was there Sir Ernley Blackwell, C.B. Legal Advisor to the Home Office, asked Mr. Guy Stephenson to send him the diaries of Casement.

Mr. Stephenson asked me to take the diary and ledger together with typewritten copies of the entries which he had to Sir E. Blackwell, which I did…The diary and ledger of Casement are now in the possession of Sir E. Blackwell.”

Parker explained that Blackwell wanted to show the diaries “to a native of the Congo who was calling upon him tomorrow”. This was the missionary John Harris who was representing the Archbishop of Canterbury and who indeed on 19 July “examined the diary and other “exhibits” bearing on it”. He was convinced by what he saw and read, writing, “the nature of the record caused me such mental and physical distress that it was only by the exercise of sheer will power that I avoided reeling from the chair”. (Bodleian Library, Brit. Emp. 353) Harris then advised the Archbishop and his friend Henry Nevinson of what he had seen.

Ruling out official documentation as evidence means accepting that at least 30 named individuals were privy to the research and writing of extensive forgeries and the linked faking of memos, and that the deceit went unrecorded or unmentioned for decades by any of them. This is also not credible.

Regards

Jeff Dudgeon

18 April 2026

Reply From Jack Lane:

Jeff Dudgeon does not seem to realise the implications of what he says when he  claims that I:  “make a huge amount” of his “simple statement of fact that the typed versions of the diaries might have existed before the manuscripts” !  (Irish Political Review, March 2026).

But that ‘statement of fact’ is full of contradictions:  ‘might have’ expresses possibility:  therefore it cannot be a statement of fact.  If it is a statement of fact as asserted, then possibility is excludeda priori.  “Versions of ‘the diaries’ ” cannot exist before the diaries exist!

Jeff says “I can’t prove the negative, that they didn’t come first“.  True. And he can’t prove manuscript diaries existed.  So what can he prove?  He says—

“There is considerable, definitive evidence from official documents of the time (April-July 1916) that typed copies of manuscripts were made.”  

No.  There is evidence from official documents that typescripts were made. 

There is no evidence that these typescripts were copies of manuscript diaries!

Jeff goes on to say that—

“The US Ambassador was given “photographs of two pages“…”. 

No.  He was given photos of typescript pages.  The  PRO prepared a Memorandum  for Home Secretary Rab Butler, on 17th March 1959, which explains that the Ambassador “was given photos of two pages from the typescripts”.  But subsequently Butler  changed that to “The ambassador was given photos of two passages” (CAB 129/97/3).  

Butler knew that any  reference to typescripts ‘gave the game away’:  as typescripts are not diaries.  And the Memo  itself  was destroyed on 5th September 1993 (HO 144/23481).  This is typical of British Government duplicity as recently as 1993!

Jeff has been made aware of this more than once and simply ignores this fact—as he does with other examples of the duplicity about the typescripts which are wrongly called diaries.

Jeff remarks that “There were as well statements by private citizens that they saw manuscript material”.  No.  Only one private person, Ben Allen, of the Associated Press, has stated that what he was shown was rolled manuscript pages—and these have never been seen since. He wanted to take these to Casement for confirmation but was not allowed. 

Is there any need to ask why he was not allowed to do so, and what that refusal clearly implies?  The answer can only be that these writings were not by Casement!

What are the names of other ‘private citizens’ who saw these pages:  and where are their statements?  

It is interesting and telling that Jeff calls what these people saw “material”  i.e. not Diaries.  We do not  know what was in this ‘material’, as it has never been seen since by anybody.  

Such ‘material’ would have been Government papers, and should belong in some government file—but none of it is!  If it had been available, the question of authenticity might have been solved over a century ago!

Jeff says of me that “he ensures I can’t win the dispute by defining ‘verified evidence’ as meaning anything but official documentation”.  But he can always win the argument by producing independent witness evidence.  Official documentation is not independent.  In some 30 years he has failed to find such evidence. 

He says I am “defining ‘verified evidence’ as meaning anything”:  No. I am not defining it as anything, but as verified evidence, to distinguish it from unverified conjectures.

He claims the DPP “did get provided with manuscripts”.  But the evidence he gives for this once again rests on a police document and not on independent evidence.  In fact, the Inspector Parker statement he cites is incoherent.  There was no ‘native of the Congo’ conspiring to incite the natives. Parker attributes this nonsense to Blackwell—which indicates he cannot be trusted.  In fact, the ‘Congo native’ was the English missionary John Harris. 

In facr, Blackwell described the diary as “many pages of closely typed matter” which he showed to Harris on the afternoon of 19th July by instruction of the Home Secretary.   

Jeff claims  that the forgery allegations mean that—

“at least 30 named individuals were privy to the research and writing of extensive forgeries and the linked faking of memos, and that the deceit went unrecorded or unmentioned for decades by any of them.”  

This is a non sequitur.  Give us  the 30 ‘names’!  Why would these in-the-know individuals record the deceit they were perpetrating and thus risk career and reputation?  Why would they inform others of the criminal defamation they were complicit in? 

Jeff’s arguments are mind bending (to put it politely) in their contradictions, non sequiturs, conjectures, sophistry and assumptions and do not convince, despite being his stock in trade.    

Jack Lane

Letter to the Editor

Dear  Editor,

The debate on Roger Casement and the ‘Black Diaries.’

I have been following this  very interesting  and informative debate in your pages for some time.

Jack Lane’s reply to Jeffrey Dudgeon (Irish Political Review, April 2026) begs some questions with reference to Michael McDowell, SC, and the six-volume Book of Evidence provided by the Metropolitan Police for the British DPP in preparing for the trial of Casement. 

 The Book contained typescripts of extracts created by the Police from  diaries of Casement’s they claimed to have in their possession but which they did not include in the  evidence.  

Mr. Lane found this  extraordinary—the police  deliberately withholding crucial evidence from the DPP in such a high profile case!  This fact was  brought to the attention of Mr. Jeffrey Dudgeon over 6 years ago.   

Mr Dudgeon, very interestingly,  brought this to the attention of Mr. Michael McDowell who is of course one of the leading legal minds in  Ireland and must be well able to judge the validity  or otherwise of  police evidence.  

But Mr. Lane gives no information on Mr. McDowell’s view on the validity of that Book of Evidence.  Perhaps he does not know.  

In that case, it would be very useful indeed for this debate if we had  Mr McDowell’s  opinion.  It seems to me that the conclusions to be drawn from this episode are critical to the provenance—and therefore the authenticity or otherwise—of the ‘Black Diaries’. 

Pat Maloney, Cork, 16.4.2026

Reply to Jeffrey Dudgeon From John Martin

Jeffrey Dudgeon says in his letter that there is zero evidence that the typescripts preceded the manuscripts of the Black Diaries.  But that is not true.  As indicated in the January 2026 issue of the Irish Political Review there is an error in the Black Diary entry of 7th November 1910. The entry describes a lunar rainbow, but in reality this occurred on the day before that—6th November—as documented in the authentic Amazon Journal for that period.

The forger then realised his mistake and attempted to correct it.  But the corrections appear only in the handwritten Black Diary manuscript. They are not written on the typescripts.  This seems to prove that the manuscripts were written after the typescripts!

It is interesting to note that in Jeffrey Dudgeon’s book, which he claims to be a complete record of the Black Diaries, he reproduces the diary entries for 6/11/1910 and 8/11/1910, but for some reason leaves out the faulty 7/11/1910 entry. I wonder why?

John Martin