Originally published in 1918 by the Talbot Press in Dublin, two years after his execution by the British Government for his involvement in the 1916 Easter Rising, Some Poems of Roger Casement has long been a collector’s item. In life and in death, Roger Casement appears to contain many contradictions: decorated British diplomat, Irish Protestant and martyred Irish nationalist. He was a humanitarian, essayist and sometime poet, a public gentleman and a private lover.

Over the years, Roger Casement’s ghost has been the subject of endless controversies, co-opted into both the queer liberation movement in Ireland and the Republican movement. Predator or saviour, traitor or hero, maligned martyr or gay icon? The question depends on who you ask, and what aspects of Casement’s life they choose to hold in focus, or to dismiss as a lie. —SEÁN HEWITT

Includes a specially commissioned introduction by Seán Hewitt as well as the original 1918 introduction, written by Casement’s cousin, Gertrude Parry.

ROGER CASEMENT was a diplomat, humanitarian and Irish nationalist born in Sandycove in 1864. He came from an Ulster Protestant family and led a distinguished career as a British consul in Africa and South America. After retiring from British public service in 1913, his long-held nationalist views came to bear when he helped form the Irish National Volunteers and travelled to the US and Germany to raise support for them. Returning to Ireland to persuade the Easter Rising leaders to abort their plans, he was arrested and tried for treason. He was hanged on 3 August 1916. His remains were returned to Ireland in 1965 and, after a state funeral, reburied in Glasnevin Cemetery.