THE CASEMENT FAMILY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 7, 7 August 1916, Page 3

THE CASEMENT FAMILY.

An Irishwoman who knew Sir Roger Casement in his youth has communicated to the Daily Mail theso particulars of his family ami of his character when a boy : t

"The Casements were a very wellknown County Antrim family with several branches. The grandfather was Mr Roger Casement, a land agent and well-to-do man of property. The whole family have always ' been Protestants, staunch members of Orange societies, and pronounced Unionists, and so were all Sir Roger Casement's early associations and associates.

"His father was once an officer in the British Army. He was a recluse and an eccentric, and' his hobby Was the 'occult.' He lived at the Adair Arms, the principal hotel of Bally - mena, and undertook to give a seance and raise 'spirits' for the habitues of the hotel. On the night of the seance, at the hour appointed for it.s start, be was found dead in bis room. The people said that his spirit was too big for his frail body and that he had simply 'snuffed out.' He was an extraordinary Don Quixote-looking man.

"Roger, at that time about fourteen, was being educated at the Diocesan School at Ballymena. Left alone in the world, he was practically adopted by Mr and Mrs John Young, jun., well-known linen people' of Ballymena. With them he spent his holidays, and was coming and going there until 1899.

"At school he was a great friend

of my brother, and often came to my home. Hfi was a very remarkable bov handsome, &entltematrly, gay, ami of n singularly happy tempera-•■-"»nt. But be was n very 9*tpvnv!neH I'i , ol'vavs very suvn of himself, ran! r. ifcb 'onmand and itttflnMi'ce ove'r'boya much older than himself."