Our Kind is a short film by Alan Phelan which imagines a future for Roger Casement had he not been executed in 1916. This film is set 25 years later in 1941, where Casement is in exile in Norway with his former manservant and now partner Adler Christensen. They are visited by Alice Stopford Green, a close friend and former supporter of Casement. The story unfolds as Adler and Alice both betray their relationships with him, paralleling Casement’s isolation from his homeland, beliefs and the ideals of the Rising.

The film gets it title from the speech Casement made on his conviction, and extracts of this are used throughout the film. The dialogue re-narrativises text from another film which like other recent work by Phelan is not openly credited as the re-staging of the text creates a whole new story and meaning from the original.

This scripting technique enables Our Kind to embrace the complex and contradictory historical interpretations surrounding Casement by taking a counter-factual position. This means that there are few historically correct elements in the story presented. Instead we are given a very different scenario which in itself reflects the flaws common in the genre of historical drama for film, with its need to find drama in history, resulting in stories that speak more of the present than the past. Much of the scholarship surrounding Casement is similarly muddled, caught between interpretative approaches, political prejudices and at times an inverted homophobia that cannot come to terms with Casement’s personal and public lives. Several of these angles are woven into the story, often mis-represented and incomplete.

Our Kind cannot be viewed at face value. The meaning lies between the lines. This is a deliberate challenge to audiences and the prevailing 1916 narrative as Casement is not presented as hero or icon; neither liberated or closeted. Instead we encounter Casement as an ordinary human being with ordinary human needs, emotions, and failings. The film may be stripped of historical fact but there are many references to Casement’s life, opinions and principles that reveal in itself a different kind of truth.

Our Kind was commissioned by The Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, funded by Dublin City Council, Department of Arts 2016 Commemorations Committee and The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Bank of Ireland.

Talks and Lectures Programme

Casement Evening Lecture Series, Thursdays 6.30pm

Thursday 10 March
Courting Favour & The Court of Criminal Appeal
with Sinead McCoole
Historian, curator and author Sinéad McCoole will explore the life of the Irish born artist Sir John Lavery and his evolution from orphan to wealthy society painter. She will explore the reasons he painted High Treason, which was neither a formal commission nor a piece of iconography commemorating an Irish martyr.

Thursday 14 April
‘One Bold Deed of Open Treason’: The Appalling Vista of Roger Casement’s Trial 
with Angus Mitchell
The troubled history of Sir John Lavery’s great history painting in various ways mirrors the contorted agonies of its subject matter. By digging beneath the surface of the painting, Angus Mitchell will excavate some of the key fault lines in this courtroom drama.

With further evening talks from May as follows: 

Thursday 19 May: Casement, Sebald and the Notion of Artist as Witness with Declan Long
Thursday 2 June: Casement and the Lawyers: Hanged by a Comma, Throttled by a Semicolon?, with Donal O’Donnell
Thursday 16 June: Researching Roger Casement; his Portrayal and Role in Political and Cultural Controversies, with Jeffrey Dudgeon 
Thursday 1 September: In conversation: Chris Clarke with Alan Phelan

Lunchtime Talk:

1pm, Thursday 12 May
Elizabeth Magill in conversation with Jesse Jones

Sunday Lecture: 

Sunday 12 June, 2pm

Patriot, Patron and Painter – Casement, Darling and Lavery in the Court of Appeal , with Kenneth McConkey

Coffee Conversations, Wednesdays 11am

6 April, Our Kind with Alan Phelan
13 April, High Treason: Roger Casement, an introduction to the exhibition with Jessica O’Donnell
27 April, How the Race for Rubber shaped the fortunes of Roger Casement with Barbara Dawson
25 May, Patrick Pearse’s perspective on the role of art and visual culture in education with Brian Crowley

Fee €5, includes tea/coffee. Please pay at reception on the day.

Further Coffee Conversations, talks and lectures will take place in the summer and autumn, for further information, please visit our website www.hughlane.ie/lectures.