Not a Man of His Own Time: Roger Casement and Transnational Activism

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to explore the emergence of the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement as a transnational activist. I argue that Casement should be considered a ‘rooted cosmopolitan,’ a concept first advanced by Sidney Tarrow. As Tarrow explains, “the special characteristics of these activists is not their cognitive cosmopolitanism, but their relational links to other societies, to other countries, and to international institutions.” Casement’s transatlantic actions and movements across three continents—Europe, Africa, and the Americas—nurtured his awareness of colonial violence and his capacity to bring injustice to attention. It also led him to engage in the cause of freeing his own people, the Irish, from British domination. A close study of Casement’s life and political activism sheds light on earlier generations of transnational struggle, long before the Internet age.