Black Diaries

During his trial the prosecution (F. E. Smith) suggested to the defence barrister (A. M. Sullivan) that they should jointly produce the diaries in evidence, as this would most likely cause the court to find Casement "guilty but insane", and save his life.

The British government then began to circulate photographic page copies to block any appeals or requests for clemency, particularly from the US, that showed his "sexual degeneracy".

[7] Another poet, Alfred Noyes, who had accepted the diaries as genuine in 1916, also criticised the establishment in a 1957 book, The Accusing Ghost or Justice for Casement.

[4] That person was most likely Sir Basil Thomson who on his dismissal from Scotland Yard apparently removed large quantities of official papers.

[10] In 1965 The Trial of Sir Roger Casement, a book by H. Montgomery Hyde, was banned by the Irish Censorship of Publications Board because the diary extracts in it were found to be "indecent or obscene".

"[14] At the turn of the 21st century a forensic examination of the diaries was commissioned by Bill McCormack, Professor of Literary History at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

He is a Belgian historian of the Congo Free State period, and argues closely that Casement's use of Kikongo slang, and some entries about people and places in 1903, could not have been known in London in 1916.

[22][b] In 2016 the University of Notre Dame published Paul Hyde's monograph, which concludes that both sides of the dispute have outstanding issues to address: "the dominant and 'official' theory of the authenticity of the Black Diaries, in force for almost one hundred years, has almost no explanatory power whatsoever.

It fails to answer the most basic and persistent questions ... Those who believe that the Black Diaries are forged do not have their belief supported by facts proven beyond reasonable doubt.

"[23] All the diaries, including for the first time the 1911 volume which contained the most prolonged sexual narrative, were published by Jeffrey Dudgeon the same year.