<p>“The bravest man it fell to my unhappy lot to execute.” These were the words of the hangman who took Roger Casement to the scaffold in Pentonville Prison in 1916.</p><p>Roger Casement’s final years were lived in pursuit of Irish independence. But was he a driver of rebellion or a hopeless romantic whose brainwaves did more harm than good?&nbsp;</p><p>On Free State today, Rory Carroll talks about his book A Rebel and a Traitor about Casement and Reginald Hall, the man who pursued him.</p><p>He talks about the lover who betrayed Casement, why Irish prisoners of war in Germany didn’t trust him and the complicated legacy that persists to this day.</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>