Journalist and author Rory Carroll makes a welcome return to long-form writing here, following the critical success of 2023’s Killing Thatcher and the superbly written Hugo Chavez biography Comandante (2013). Having served as the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent since 2018, Carroll here turns his focus to the extraordinary latter years of the life of his fellow Dubliner, Roger Casement.
A truly fascinating character, Casement would become a hero of the Irish nationalist movement, but was raised in England and enjoyed a remarkable rise through the British civil service. Eventually knighted for his services (which included the bombshell exposure of human rights abuses in the Congo by Belgium, and further atrocities by a British-registered company collecting rubber in Peru), Casement then returned to his roots – a self-professed “incorrigible Irishman”.
He became an active proponent of Irish nationalism and an energetic leader in a conspiracy to encourage German military support for the movement in 1914. It is these years of Casement’s life and, particularly, the efforts of the fastidious British Naval captain Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall to foil the plot, which drive the narrative of A Rebel And A Traitor.
Combining the energetic penmanship of a thriller-writer with the detailed analytical eye required to effectively portray the complexities of Casement’s life, Carroll has delivered a compelling work of historic writing which more than does its subject justice.
