Architect of the Easter Rising, hanged as a traitor: for Roger Casement, a pardon still seems far away | Rory Carroll

Relations with Britain have improved again since Brexit, but battles over Irish history remain visible in Stormont’s endless feuding

Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and author of A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and Birth of the IRA

More than a century after he was marched to the gallows, there is still something radioactive about Roger Casement, a name that continues to emit a faint crackle in British-Irish relations.

He was knighted in 1911 by King George V for distinguished imperial service, but then embraced radical Irish nationalism and sought German help for the 1916 Easter Rising.

Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and author of A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and the Birth of the IRA