Dear Irish Political Review Editor,
I wish to deal with just a couple of points of accuracy in the Casement articles in October’s Irish Political Review where I get a dozen mentions – partly because I had a letter published.
In defence of President Connolly from Paul Hyde’s many, often intemperate, attacks, I will only say that emerging from a liberation theology background, she will be, and was, admiring of Casement’s humanitarian work in the Congo and Peru – probably regardless of his pederastic diaries. Being a modern Irish progressive, she will also see no fault, rather the opposite, in Casement being gay. That is the settled view of Ireland today, just as with Oscar Wilde.
My various critics, now a Gang of Five, can never accept that Casement was as addicted to writing as to sex with young men which explains the mountains of letters in the various archives and the twin diaries in both 1910 and 1911, with their different, if overlapping, purposes.
Firstly, John Minahane wrote in Contradictions(p. 20) that Sir Ernley Blackwell said “what Harris was given was ‘many closely typed pages’”. However, in trying to contradict Harris’s account of being given sight of at least one manuscript diary, not just a typescript, he has mixed up two different events. Sir Ernley actually wrote on 20 July 1916, “I saw Mr Harris yesterday & showed him the diaries”. (HO 144/1636/49)
Blackwell did write in his 15 July memo to Cabinet of “Casement’s diaries and his ledger entries covering many pages of closely typed matter”. But this was an entirely different occasion when the exercise of the prerogative on the ground of insanity was being discussed.
John Martin earlier on page 5 in Righting The Record covers the same ground but accurately states the ‘closely typed’ phrase was used for Cabinet. Instead he argues the point that Blackwell, when writing of ‘typed material’, suggests this proves there was no manuscript material then existing. That notion fails in that Blackwell is addressing Cabinet Ministers who will have seen typed diary versions and not the manuscripts. The typed versions were made for the very reason of wider distribution, with their easier to read text.
Jack Lane (p. 19) repeats the same mistake as John Minahane as to what Harris saw: “An example of this is the claim that the missionary, John Harris, saw a diary by Casement. But the fact is that he did not. Ernley Blackwell, Assistant Under-Secretary at the Home Office described the ‘diary’ shown as being “many pages of closely typed matter”. However this phrase refers to what the Cabinet saw. Harris says, as did Blackwell, that he was shown manuscript material on 19 July.
Secondly, John Martin reiterates (p. 20) in October that the 1910 diary ‘forger’ erroneously wrote of getting to Lima across the Andes by river boat.
I wrote in September’s issue: “A lesser error of John’s is when he wrote of an ‘anomaly’ (p. 5): “Ó Máille says that the Black Diarist describes taking a boat from Atenas to Lima—which would be an impossibility (requiring the crossing of the Andes mountains).” But nobody crossed the Andes. Casement actually wrote on 6 September 1910: “Bishop’s statement today incriminates…Martinegui who went to Lima by last “Liberal” with the plunder of Atenas – leaving the Indians starving”.”
John ripostes in October: “The “Liberal” was a river steamship. Jeffrey doesn’t explain how this boat crossed the Andes from Atenas (North East Peru) to Lima (West coast of Peru). The only conclusion to be drawn from this error is that the forger’s knowledge of the terrain was poor—for it was not an error that Casement would have made.”
Casement’s Black Diary entry about the Liberal is confirmed twice in the Amazon Journal or White Diary by, firstly, “The worst story of all, perhaps, Bishop told me of Elias Martenengui, the man who has recently gone to Lima with his “fortune”. He saw an Indian woman he liked, the wife of one of the local Indians…” (20 October 1910, p. 276)
And secondly, “Elias Martenengui is the wretch charged by Bishop with the atrocious crime against the poor girl, Mercedes, now at Naimenes. This unspeakable brute left Atenas by the last Liberal before my arrival and has retired on his “gains”.” (3 October 1910, p.159)
So Elias Martinengui did leave Atenas for Lima on the river boat Liberal. However he did not cross the Andes, as nobody going to Lima did by boat. To get there in those days required a long voyage back down the Amazon river system from La Chorrera via Iquitos and Manaos to the Atlantic, then around South America, or overland through Panama.
His departure is further confirmed on both page 217 and 316 of El proceso del Putumayo y sus secretos inauditos by Judge Carlos A. Valcárcel (2004), the ‘unheard of secrets’ in the 1915 Putumayo trial. I translate:
“The chief of the Atenas section, Elias Martinengui fled from judicial action by embarking on the Peruvian Amazon steamboat “Liberal” in La Chorrera with four of his favourite women” (Foja 868 del proceso).
The diarist made no error. Casement knew and recorded river transport well.
Regards
Jeff Dudgeon
Belfast
5 October 2026
Reply to Jeffrey Dudgeon
In his most recent letter Jeffrey Dudgeon does not find anything suspicious about taking the Liberal (a river steamship) from Atenas (on the east of the Andes) to Lima (on the west of the Andes). He suggests that the boat went eastwards to the Atlantic on the east coast of Brazil. He is then rather coy about the next step of the journey. The fact is, since the Liberal was a river steamship, this route would involve transferring to an ocean-going ship. From there the ocean-going ship would either go South around the horn of South America and then go north up the Pacific Ocean to Lima. Alternatively, it could go North from Brazil to Panama and cross by land (the Panama Canal was not in operation in 1910).
Leaving aside the question of whether such circuitous routes are likely, does Jeffrey really think that anyone with even a basic familiarity of the geography would say a person went “to Lima by last Liberal”, as the Black Diarist says?
In no genuine document is anyone described as taking the Liberal from Atena to Lima.
In the genuine diary Casement does indeed say that Martenengui left Atenas by the last Liberal, following the perpetration of an “atrocious crime”. In another genuine document that Jeffrey quotes it says he “fled from judicial action” by the “steamboat Liberal”. But there is no mention of where Martenengui was fleeing to!
Given that it appears that he was fleeing in haste, following the perpetration of a crime, it is possible that he had no clear idea himself. His priority was just ‘to get out of Dodge’. Even if he did know where he was going, is it likely that a man on the run would share that piece of information with anyone, apart from his closest confidants?
In the genuine Amazon journal, Casement seems unaware on 3rd October 1910 of the destination of Martenengui. Casement only appears to become aware of the rumour that Martenengui was in Lima on 20th October. Also, Casement’s entry of 3rd October 1910 from the genuine diary suggests that he only became aware of Martenengui’s departure after the event. The departure had happened before Casement arrived in the region.
And yet the all-seeing and all-knowing Black Diarist “knows” about Martenengui’s departure on 6th September 1910, almost a month before the genuine Casement was aware of it! He also “knows” that the destination was Lima on 6th September 1910: one and a half months before the genuine Casement heard a rumour that Martenengui was in Lima!
It is obvious that the forger was “too clever by half”! He is a “magpie” or mere collector of facts. But the problem is that he doesn’t understand those facts or the context!
So, from the genuine diary, the forger noted that it was a fact that Martenengui left Atena. He also noted that, one and a half months after the departure, Casement was aware of a rumour that Martenengui was in Lima. He conflated those two pieces of information to make the nonsensical sentence in the Black Diary that Martenengui “went to Lima by last Liberal”.
The Black Diary entry of 6th September 1910 was written by someone who was not aware of the environment that Casement was operating in, and it also fails to appreciate what Casement could reasonably have known on that date.
The adage springs to mind: What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!
John Martin
Casement: Diary Or Typescript?
Dear Editor,
Jeff Dudgeon claims that:
“Harris says, as did Blackwell, that he was shown manuscript material on 19 July [1916].”
Neither said that a manuscript diary was shown and there is no evidence that it then existed.
Jack Lane
6.10.2026
