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An application has been submitted to move the remains of Roger Casement, a knight of the realm who became involved in the Easter Rising, to Northern Ireland. If granted, this would mark the second occasion on which Casement’s remains have been exhumed and reburied.
Casement was initially buried within the grounds of Pentonville Prison in London, where he was executed by hanging in 1916. His execution followed his capture upon returning to Ireland aboard a German U-boat after a mission to Germany aimed at securing arms for Irish nationalists. In 1965, Casement’s remains were taken from London and reinterred at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. However, a group called the Roger Casement Commemoration and Re-interment Association has now applied for permission to exhume his remains again. Their goal is to relocate Casement to Murlough Bay in County Antrim, a site where Patrick McCarry has agreed to permit the reburial. This initiative is driven by a desire to honor Casement’s expressed wish to be buried in that location, as he wrote in a letter on 25 July 1916: “Don’t let my body lie here – get me back to the green hill at Murlough, by the McGarry’s house, looking down on the Moyle, that’s where I’d like to be now, and there’s where I’d like to lie.”
During the First World War, Casement saw the potential in an alliance between Ireland and Germany to help secure Irish independence. As preparations for the Easter Rising unfolded within the secret military council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), Casement traveled to Germany. His mission was to form a brigade from Irish soldiers who had been captured while fighting for Britain and were now prisoners in Germany. Unfortunately, the plan did not succeed, as Germany failed to deliver the promised support of manpower and weapons, including 200,000 rifles. Upon returning to Ireland aboard a German U-boat in April 1916, Casement was seized by British authorities.
While the Easter Rising was announced with Pádraig Pearse reading the proclamation outside Dublin’s General Post Office, Casement was held in the Tower of London, awaiting trial for treason. He was found guilty on 29 June 1916 and sentenced to death. Despite efforts from prominent political and literary figures like W.B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw to secure a reprieve, their campaign was unsuccessful. Casement was ultimately executed on 3 August 1916. His prospects for clemency were also negatively affected by the publication of excerpts from his diaries, which revealed aspects of his private life and publicly exposed him as homosexual
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