Commemoration event for Roger Casement in London’s Pentonville Prison

Portrait of Roger Casement

The wreath-laying ceremony at Pentonville Prison, set for tomorrow, is being arranged by the Roger Casement Commemoration & Reinterment Association, just before the 107th anniversary of the diplomat’s death.

In the coming days, the Association is also planning to host commemoration events in the north and Co Kerry. The group continues to campaign for Casement’s final resting place to honour his wishes.

British forces captured Casement in Co Kerry on April 21, 1916, when he returned from Germany where he had secured weapons for the Rising.

Following his high treason sentence, Casement, the Dublin-born nationalist and humanitarian activist, was hanged at London’s Pentonville Prison and buried under quicklime in the prison’s yard.

Casement, however, expressed in a letter to his cousin Elizabeth Bannister days before his execution his wish to be buried at Murlough Bay on the north Co Antrim coast. Following his father’s death, he spent part of his childhood with Ms Bannister in the area.

Casement’s remains were finally exhumed from Pentonville and repatriated to Ireland in 1965 after campaigning by the Irish government. They were reinterred in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery, the final resting place of other seminal figures in Irish history such as Michael Collins and Charles Stewart Parnell.

The Roger Casement Commemoration & Reinterment Association argues that the campaign to relocate his remains to Co Antrim respects Casement’s wish to be buried in a place dear to his heart.

Bob Murray of the group said: “Éamon de Valera, as taoiseach and later president, was said to have never held a meeting with any British government minister or representative without asking them for the return of Roger Casement’s remains to Ireland.

“He managed to secure that, but we have a simple question – is it not time that the Irish people honour and respect the wishes of Roger Casement himself on the location of his final resting place?

“When Harold Wilson as British prime minister agreed to the exhumation at Pentonville in 1965, he did so on the condition the new burial site would not be in the north, so as not to enflame tensions. Now, as we mark 107 years since his death, we believe it’s time to finally fulfill Casement’s request.”

Following the London ceremony on Saturday, the Association will lay wreaths at Banna Strand in Co Kerry, where Casement was apprehended, and at Casement Park in west Belfast on Thursday August 3.

There will be another ceremony at Murlough Bay on Saturday August 5.

In addition, the Commemoration & Reinterment Association hopes for a future memorial to the diplomat at Casement Park when the proposed new 34,500 GAA stadium is built.

Mr Murray said: “We will be campaigning for a permanent memorial to honor the man for whom the stadium will be named, and possible suggestions will include a life-sized statue.

“Such a memorial will be a fitting tribute to this incredibly important figure in our history.”