PB February-March 2026
February-March 2026 35
Broken Archangel
is basement
Casement
Reviewing Roland Philipps’
unoriginal but hyped
biography of Roger Casement
and his podcasts
By Paul Hyde
T
he front cover of ‘Broken Archangel:
The Tempestuous Lives of Roger
Casement’ (Paperback: Vintage, 19
Jun 2025) bears a photo of
Casement with the original
perspective manipulated to suggest a
disturbed, fractured personality. So, with his
judgement of Casement posted on the front
cover, Philipps eectively announces his lack
of impartiality and his loyalty to the dishonest
Inglis template; and he unwittingly reveals his
motive for writing what turns out to be a little-
new biography. The title was bestowed on
Casement by his contemporary, TE Lawrence
(of Arabia).
On the opening page, anxious to appear
‘up-front’, Philipps announces that when
Casement went to Africa at age 20 he was
unaware of being homosexual and confirms
no-one else knew for the following thirty
years. Philipps does not explain how he can
know this when he admits Casement did not
know. Better than mind-reading or artificial
intelligence – this is divine intelligence.
Likewise Philipps on page 281 and in a
podcast overhears a private conversation
between Casement and Dick Morten in the
prison cell.
Philipps describes his study as “a modern
look” at Casement but his portrait is identical
in all respects to that invented by Inglis over
fifty years ago. His Casement is a lonely
misfit, emotionally unstable and impulsive,
tortured by forbidden instincts, a damaged
dreamer and idealist, lifelong victim of a
dysfunctional childhood and subject to
paranoia and depression.
‘Broken Archangel’, acclaimed for the
depth and accuracy of its research, compels
POLITICS
readers to ask how the author got so much
wrong. For example, on page 54 he states that
Castlereagh was Prime Minister: in a podcast
he asserts Pearse visited Casement in
Germany: on page 127 he describes Eoin
MacNeill as an archaeologist and Chairman of
the IRB. All these assertions are false. He also
claims absurdly that Casement planned to
invade Ireland with the Irish Brigade and gives
recruit numbers varying from fifteen to sixty.
On page 306 he refers to a “conclusive
scientific analysis” but fails to name the Giles
Report while his podcasts give the wrong
date. He misnames John Quinn of New York as
Joseph and alleges that Casement “never
made friends” which is utterly false. He
wrongly reports that Casement converted to
Catholicism when he was reconciled to the
church. Repeating these falsehoods in
promotional podcasts indicates that his final
draft was not impartially assessed by an
expert before publication as is standard
practice.
But in addition to factual blunders, there
are many serious falsehoods which illustrate
how little he can be trusted. Falsehoods
emerge when Philipps tackles the provenance
of the trunks and diaries. With good reason,
he refuses the ocial date of 25 April and the
ocial version of luggage spontaneously
delivered to Scotland Yard by a former
landlord. In his Irish Examiner podcast
Philipps claims that during the first
interrogation, on 23 April, a constable
announced that the police had found the
trunks in Casement’s former lodgings.
According to Philipps, Casement said there
was nothing in the trunks – “just a few diaries
and things”.
He suggests that Casement had forgotten
the scandalous contents or considered them
unimportant. Once again Philipps refers only
to the 1903 diary whereas the police record
referred to a notebook, three diaries and a
cash ledger and moreover stated that the
trunks were not found by the police in his
former lodgings but were delivered to
Scotland Yard on 25 April by a former landlord.
The comment “just a few diaries and things”
does not appear in the interrogation transcript
because it is entirely Philipps’ invention. Then
in his RTÉ podcast and on pages 215 and 260
Philipps unambiguously repudiates this
account by confirming what many others
believe – that the trunks were found and
opened in December 1914, not in 1916. But
with this version there are major problems
that Philipps cannot solve and which he
wisely ignores. For example, he cannot
explain why the police records are false nor
can he explain why for over a year the police
covered up their alleged discovery of the
obscene diaries rather than exploit them at
once.
When dealing with Casement’s brief stay in
Oslo, Philipps loses control and resorts to
chicanery. Foreign Oce documents relating
to Casement in Oslo and the period following
consist of extensive correspondence between
Findlay and Nicolson in Whitehall. These
letters which Philipps has read in The National
Archives (cited as his sources: FO 133/107,
337/107, KV 2/6) make very clear that no
betrayal by Christensen happened and that
Findlay was duped into issuing the bribe.
Faithful to Inglis’ duplicity because he has
no choice, Philipps nonetheless makes a
mess of it. In a podcast he describes
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36 February-March 2026
February-March 2026 PB
42-year-old First Secretary Lindley, the
Minister’s right-hand man and soon to be
ambassador, as a clerk, a junior ocial who
sent a telegram to Whitehall with the first
scandal allegation when in fact Lindley’s four-
page handwritten memo was sent by
diplomatic bag.
Philipps’ RTÉ podcast falsely claims Lindley
oered money to Christensen, while on page
161 he cites from Lindley’s memo that no
money was sought or oered. He alleges that
the FO reprimanded Findlay for oering a
bribe of £5,000. False again – the FO
documents show that Whitehall had
authorised the bribe assuming Findlay would
not be so foolish as to write it on legation
notepaper for Christensen. When Casement
publicised the bribe, Findlay was severely
castigated for being duped all along.
Philipps often alleges Casement’s parents
were alcoholics citing his mother’s death-
certificate reference to cirrhosis of the liver.
He supports this slur by another suggesting
her illegitimacy. Alcohol is only one of many
causes of cirrhosis; others include hepatitis,
diabetes, certain genetic conditions, fatty
liver disease, obesity and cystic fibrosis.
Philipps favours alcoholism in order to
insinuate the family was dysfunctional which
he says contributed to Casement’s alleged
emotional instability.
There are 326 pages of narrative, many
thousands of words but one crucial word is
missing. That crucial word appears in other
Casement studies and it features in the Home
Oce files of the late 1950s. It is a core word
in ‘Anatomy of a lie’. That Philipps avoids this
word is of maximum significance since its
total absence destroys any credibility in his
book. The word is ‘typescripts’. Philipps
simply ignores the existence of the police
typescripts which were shown in 1916. This is
eectively a denial of their existence and of
the vital role they played in the defamatory
campaign.
It is important to understand why Philipps
skirts the typescripts. His suppression of the
material fact of the typescripts is intentional
and it opens the way for strategic deceit
aimed at opposing the powerful evidence in
‘Anatomy of a lie’ by reasserting the alleged
existence of the manuscript diaries in 1916.
But what Philipps thought would pass
unnoticed is here exposed as a fatal error.
Here are some of the crucial lies he smuggled
into his narrative.
1. On page 281 he claims Sullivan was given
the diaries but refused to read them. This is
false. He was given the police typescripts
as verified by his junior Artemus Jones who
did read them.
2. On page 309 he claims the Reverend John
Harris was shown photographs of diary
extracts but this is false. HO 144/1636…3A
confirms he was shown the typescripts by
instruction of the Home Secretary.
3.
On page 280 he asserts that “Smith oered
to enter the diaries into evidence”. This too
is false. Smith oered the police typescripts
again as verified by Jones.
4. On page 307 Philipps says the diaries were
examined by two psychiatrists and this is
untrue. They examined the 1911 typescript
and ledger. This is confirmed by PRO HO
144/1636/311643/40 where Doctors Smith
and Craig report “We have read and
considered the copies of the diary dated 1st
January to 31st December 1911 …”
(emphasis added).
5.
On page 279 Philipps asserts that
photographs of pages torn from the 1903
diary were shown to journalists by Captain
Hall. No other Casement author has ever
made this claim and Philipps gives no
source. Neither Philipps nor anyone else
has ever reported seeing these photos but
he is miraculously able to cite from the
unseen photos which he claims report
erotic encounters similar to those on the
extant diary pages. If Philipps had a source
for this claim, he would have cited it. He had
no source and therefore his claim is a lie.
Several factors provide strong evidence
that ‘Broken Archangel’ was intended as a
response to ‘Anatomy of a lie’.
But the very scant treatment of the diaries
controversy and the suppression of the police
typescripts indicate that Philipps recognised
the rigorous treatment in ‘Anatomy of a lie’
could not be challenged. Moreover, it is a fact
that each time authenticity was challenged in
the past, defensive action was taken. Soon
after Maloney’s 1936 book rumours of more
scandalous diaries were threatened.
MacColl’s hostile study pre-empted Noyes’
1957 ‘Justice for Casement’ and after
publication of that, The Sunday Times
conjured from nowhere the forged
confessional poem The Nameless One –
attributed to Casement. Mitchell’s 1997
‘Amazon Journal’ with its forgery argument
was immediately countered by Sawyer’s
‘Roger Casement’s Diaries’. And so … twelve
months after reissue of ‘Anatomy of a lie’, this
nothing-new biography appears.
Philipps claims somewhat improbably that
he has never heard of the highly controversial
‘Anatomy of a lie’. Can he not use the internet?
Is it probable that no-one in London or Dublin
publishing mentioned it to him? Could it be
that he never saw any of the Village articles?
There is really no new information in
Philipps’ study, no new perception and
nothing that was not already contained in the
1973 Inglis biography. It is fair to ask why it
was commissioned and why it has received
such intensive, costly promotion and
saturation marketing. Every newspaper of
repute in the UK and Ireland has reviewed it
positively and there are at least six podcasts.
It was launched at The Casement Summer
School and promoted at the Irish Cultural
Centre in London.
Paul R Hyde is the author of
‘Anatomy of a lie’, Wordwell Books,
and of decoding-casement.com.
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