Sir, - I am greatly surprised by Lord Kilbracken, no mean authority on art forgery as The Master Forger (1951) proved. As one who appears to wish to support British attitudes to that great humanitarian, Roger Casement, he should not underrate the secret services of the Crown by assuming that they would not have searched Casement's Ebury Street lodgings when he was known to be on his way to the US.
Has Lord Kilbracken not heard of Quinlisk, one of the first recruits to the Irish Brigade, who later proved to be a British agent, was tried by Michael Collins and shot? Does he not know of "The Cowboy", McGeoy, also known as McGeoy, who according to Monteith's Berlin diary arrived in Zossen on December 5th 1915? Aodogan O'Rahilly has shown in Winding the Clock (1991), this man, supposedly taking a message to Tom Clarke early in April 1916, carried all the news of the German plans to help the Rising straight to the door of Scotland Yard where that master employer of forgers, Basil Thomson, eagerly received him.
I would also refer Lord Kilbracken to Colonel Z by Anthony Read and David Fisher (1984), which shows that Claude Dansey, head of British Military Intelligence, had Anthony J. Brogan followed from America to Germany, when Brogan took the proceeds of the sale of his paper the Irish American. some $60,000, to Casement as funds for the Irish Brigade. And all this happened before the Banna Strand.
As I have shown in my play The Ghost Accuses, a copy of which I will willingly submit to Lord Kilbracken for his critical appraisal, the story of the finding of the diary/diaries and related documents by Thomson and Reginald Hall of Naval Intelligence has all the elements of farce, since Thomson in his own published books gives four or five different versions of their discovery. A glance at Hansard will remind Lord Kilbracken that Thomson was reprimanded and dismissed from his position at Scotland Yard for forging parts of a copy of Pravda and other Russian documents. Surprise! Surprise!
There is more, but as Lord Kilbacken must be the first to admit, the debate into which he has entered is incapable of resolution by letters to the press, which at best is only a point-scoring exercise. If he would consent to an open forum, many of us who support Casement would be only too happy to settle the question of the alleged Casement diaries once and for all. Then perhaps that great Irishman can be allowed to rest in peace. - Yours, etc.
Woodlands Avenue, Wan stead, London €11 3RB.