Conference tallis::celt

190.0. "The Proclamation Of 1916 here" by FNYFS::AUNGIER (Rene El Gringo) Thu Apr 30 1987 14:45

While many of you are waiting for my proclamation to arrive I include it
in the notes file. It shows how our leaders back in 1916 envisaged Ireland
and it shows in some ways how advanced they were in the idea of a real
democratic republic, with a vote for all its people both male and female.


		 POBLACHT NA H-EIREANN
	

	     The Provisional Government of the
	             IRISH REPUBLIC

		To the People of Ireland


IRISHMEN and IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations
from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, throug us, summons
her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
    Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary
organisations, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military
organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having
patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right
moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her
exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying
in the first on her strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
    We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland,
and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be soverign and
indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and
government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished
except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish
people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six
times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.
Standing on the fundamental right and again asserting it in arms on the
face of the world, we herby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign
Independent State, and we pledge out lives and the lives of our
comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of it
exaltation among the nations.
    The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance
of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The tepublic guarantees religious and
civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportiunities to all its citizens,
and declares its resolve to persue the happiness and prosperity of the whole
nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally,
and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government,
which have divided a minorit from the majority in the past.
    Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment
of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of
Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional
Government, herby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs
of the Republic in trust of the people.
    We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the
Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that
no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity,
or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and
discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves
for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which
it is called.
	      Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government,
			  THOMAS J. CLARKE
      SEAN MacDIARMADA                   THOMAS MacDONAGH
       P. H. PEARSE                       EAMONN CEANNT
	 JAMES CONNOLLY                    JOSEPH PLUNKETT


Rene (FNYFS::AUNGIER)