Introduction
In his 2016 lecture on Casement, former Attorney General Michael McDowell cordially invited listeners “to imagine and even to judge his real character as we choose …”: in short, he invited us to ignore verified facts about the historical person and to thereby deceive ourselves by freely choosing whatever imaginary Casement took our fancy.
Essentially the choice was between the Casement who allegedly wrote the obscene diaries and the other Casement who never saw the diaries. Today, Casement the diarist is very widely admired by those who have not read the diaries. Most of those who have read the diaries choose the other Casement. This is as Senator McDowell proposed a decade ago—a free choice for all—but logically you cannot choose both.
The open letter below was sent to President Connolly’s office by email on 27th July and receipt was acknowledged at once. Since then there has been no response. The primary motive for the letter was to discover why the President refuses to read Anatomy Of A Lie. The secondary motive was to discover if she endorses the political omertà concerning the diaries attributed to Casement. During her Presidential campaign last year she insisted that Ireland needed a president who was “not afraid to stand against the consensus”.
Anatomy Of A Lie presents her with a outstanding opportunity to challenge both the omertà and the State consensus on the Diaries.
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Open letter to President Connolly from the author of Anatomy Of A Lie
On 11th March this year I sent your office an email concerning your role at the Casement Summer School in May. I offered you a complimentary copy of my Casement study Anatomy Of A Lie: Decoding Casement, published by Wordwell Books 2019, reissued in 2023. My email was acknowledged but you did not reply to my offer. I sent a brief reminder on 6th July and that too received no reply.
I heard your speech in May, when you admitted limited knowledge of Casement and said that you were reading books to better inform yourself. Unfortunately these included ‘dubious’ works by Vargas Llosa, Philipps, and Rory Carroll: books which provide only disinformation.
Your admiration of Casement was very evident in your speech. However, I was dismayed to hear you refer to “…his homosexuality…”, as if this was a confirmed biographical fact. It seems you are unaware that the allegation is highly contested: perhaps more this year than ever before. It is difficult to understand how anyone can admire the Casement who is portrayed in the Diaries as an addicted pederast and habitual exploiter of destitute young prostitutes. But, since your knowledge is limited, you have probably not read the Diaries.
Your predecessor in Aras, Michael Higgins, knew the Diaries and read Anatomy Of A Lie in 2021. He had the good grace to write to me saying that it contained “very important scholarship”. He also agreed that Casement “was deeply wronged in life and in death…”. Your silence since March tempts me to think it is a refusal to read my book motivated by some hostile prejudice.
Of the books you mentioned, only Angus Mitchell’s has truth value. No-one has ever disputed that he is the foremost authority on the global significance of Casement. He has supported my research since 2015 and written Forewords to both my Casement books. His current book devotes several pages to Anatomy Of A Lie.
The other books you named are outrageously dishonest—with that by Vargas Llosa absurdly proposing the Diaries are both genuine and fantasy! With limited knowledge of the background, you would not detect the dishonesty by Carroll and Philipps—or realise why their heavily promoted books appeared so soon after the re-issue in 2023 of Anatomy Of A Lie.
Angus Mitchell has recently published in Village a denunciation of Carroll’s calculated duplicity: his book is strategic disinformation aimed at defending the fragile authenticity consensus threatened by my book.
That consensus has been weakened further by recent letters in the Irish Political Review. Mitchell’s Village article (attached [not reproduced here, ed.) confirms that stalwart authenticity defender, Jeffrey Dudgeon: “… concedes that no independent witness to the manuscript diaries in 1916 can be named”. Another Dudgeon letter in April admits that the Diaries might not be genuine.
In synthesis, no verified independent evidence for the existence of manuscript diaries in 1916 has ever been found!
In fact, all evidence confirms only the police typescripts were shown to influential persons at the time.
These are not opinions but verified facts which no-one has refuted in 110 years. That recognised experts Mitchell and Dudgeon agree on this cancels the futile chicanery and posturing of Carroll and Philipps. They have duped many but I cannot believe they have succeeded in deceiving you.
I find it perplexing that a politically-aware psychologist should exhibit indifference to the causes of this bitter controversy so that they have limited knowledge. Legal training alone would enable the psychologist to identify propaganda and sophistry. My book aims at breaking the political omertà which for decades has wronged Casement in death, as Michael Higgins confirmed.
For many scores of readers my book has broken the spell of fear cast by omertà. Your silence looks like an indifference which still protects that omertà. Many see the President’s role as guardian of the Republic’s moral conscience, a unique honour which entails the discovery of truth on behalf of the people. Anything less is betrayal.
With sincere best wishes for your presidency and hopes that you break the omertà.
Paul R. Hyde
PS. In the interests of openness and transparency, a number of interested persons have been listed in CC.
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The following is a portrait of the diarist who is admired by those who believe the diaries were written by Casement.
The sexual relations in the Diaries are almost exclusively casual outdoor encounters with young prostitutes. Obsessed with male genitals and prey to unceasing carnal craving for youths, often adolescents, the diarist is incapable of self control, ordinary discretion, is without caution or awareness.
It is difficult to attribute to this promiscuous sexual predator any moral values since his behaviour is consistent with the final stages of a grave neurological disorder.
The 1911 typescript convinced two psychiatrists that his borderline insanity marked him “undoubtedly as a mentally abnormal individual …”, who was driven by indiscriminate and uncontrollable homosexual desire, clearly the insatiable victim of an advanced illness. Today he would be a registered sex offender, unemployable, probably convicted of statutory rape and almost certainly hospitalised.
PH
