This Belfast Society lecture was very well attended – so well attended in fact that there was standing room only. Some 60 people were seated and about five or more standing.
First Dr Phelan of QUB Drama Studies Department is to be commended for giving this talk while still recovering from a bout of double phenomia. Constantly drinking water to try and keep his voice from giving out, he succeeding in giving one of the best talks about Casement and his friend F J Bigger that this writer has had the privileged to hear.Dr Phelan began by saying that we must now use the approach of queer theory as a corrective is needed to the general social and academic norm that has
(until recently) ignored gay peoples’ contribution to Irish history. He illustrated this point by showing how writers and thinkers like Devine (who ran the Abbey Theatre)
at the beginning of the 20th century looked at figures like Casement in a wholly negative light and developed the point by showing how gay figures in Irish theatre such as Hilton
Edwards and Michael Mac Liamor were simply not referred to as being gay in the various traditional accounts of their lives. He then showed how this had now changed and that
recent historical accounts now recognized their gay identity . Dr Phelan then made a similar observation about the innovation and change that figures like Cathal Brugha, Casement and J F Bigger had brought to the de-colonization process in Ireland.
He pointed out that the traditional way of inferring these individuals were not gay was for those nationalists who knew them to say “he didn’t make a pass at me” ergo they were not gay. Dr Phelan said that this approach simply cannot be taken seriously as an approach to Irish historiography, making the very valid point that conscious and deliberate pressure was put on those who could provide direct evidence of Casement homosexuality. On this he incidence the pressure that was put on F J Bigger by his IRB colleagues to not speak of his relationship with Casement. Bigger later destroyed most of his private papers that mentioned Casement. As for Casement himself Dr Phelan spoke of the diaries in detail by referring to the uncovering of intimate Belfast friends like Millar Gordon – by Jeffrey Dudgeon whose book on Casement Dr Phelan thought was a major break with past historiography. However, that despite this there was an remains a “masculinist” element in Irish nationalism that still refuses to accept the authenticity of the Diaries.
During questions a representative of the masculinist element of Irish nationalism attempted to sneer at Dr Phelan by inferring that the activities of the GAA could be construed as completely gay as they were young men in shorts watched by other young men….I recognized the sneering tone and later the politics of the battling interrupter to be non other than those of the notorious Stalinist groupescule the British and Irish Communist Organisation who are one of the few remaining representatives of the forgery school. Bizarre enough as the organisation that they now support – Sinn Fein has accepted that Casement was a gay man for some years. Dr Phelan attempted to reply to the battling now bullying interrupter but was thwarted at first until the bulling interrupter demonstrated just how bizarre this group’s propaganda had become. For in an attempt to bully Dr Phelan into silence the BICO battling interrupter averred the following additional argument: That Casement if he had done anything gay was also working in Africa which caused him to be infected with malaria and other possible horrors and that this must have affected his behavior.
Dr Phelan replied directly that he had had malaria and that it did not affect his relationship with his wife
. General laughter and hearty applause then ensued. Dr Phelan then continued by saying that the idea that Casement’s Black diaries were forged by British intelligence was pure fantasy as the amount of shear personal detail that the diaries contained (which included Casement cruising on the Creagh Rd) would have been impossible to reproduce.
. General laughter and hearty applause then ensued. Dr Phelan then continued by saying that the idea that Casement’s Black diaries were forged by British intelligence was pure fantasy as the amount of shear personal detail that the diaries contained (which included Casement cruising on the Creagh Rd) would have been impossible to reproduce.Afterwards I personally thanked Dr Phelan for his talk and we should all thank him and read his research. links to follow.
Brendan
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