Born in 1864 in Sandycove, Dublin. Casement was from a family of Ulster Protestants whose father, a British army officer, passed away when he was a baby, while his mother passed when he was nine. Joining a ships company to Africa when he was 20 he travelled to Africa and in 1892 joined the British Civil Service. Travelling extensively through the Belgian Congo, Casement was knighted for his campaign work where he exposed the horrific cruelty that forced native workers into slavery on rubber plantations.
Casement became a member of the Gaelic League in 1904, writing nationalist articles under the pen name “Sean Bhean Bhocht”. One of the original founders of the Irish Volunteers, he travelled to America and from there to Germany to raise an Irish Brigade from Irish Prisoners Of War. While in Germany Plunkett paid him a visit to arrange the procurement of arms for the Rising. Casement returned to Ireland on board a German U-boat but was captured in Kerry on Good Friday. Casement was imprisoned in Pentonville Gaol in London where he was hanged on 3rd August 1916.
