21/10/2026
"We have been told, we have been asked to hope, that after this war Ireland will get home rule, as a reward for the lifeblood shed in a cause which, whoever else its success may benefit, can surely not benefit Ireland. And what will home rule be in return for what its vague promise has taken and still hopes to take away from Ireland?
It is not necessary to climb the painful stairs of Irish history, that treadmill of a nation whose labours are in vain for her own uplifting, as the convict's exertions are for his redemption, to review the long list of British promises made only to be broken, of Irish hopes raised only to be dashed to the ground. Home Rule, when it comes, if come it does, will find an Ireland that is drained of all that is vital to its very existence unless it be that unquenchable hope that we build on the graves of our dead. We are told that if Irishmen go by the thousands to die not for Ireland but for Flanders, for Belgium, for a patch of sand on the deserts of Mesopotamia or a rocky trench on the heights of Gallipoli, they are winning self-government for Ireland”.
But if they dare to lay down their lives on their native soil, if they dare to dream even that freedom can be won only at home by men resolved to fight for it there, then they are traitors to their country, and their dream and their deaths alike are phases of a dishonourable fantasy."
Delivered on June 29, 1916, at the Old Bailey in London, Roger Casement's speech from the dock was a defiant address made after he was convicted of high treason for his role in the 1916 Easter Rising. Casement's writings, over a century later, are still as relevant as ever!
