SOURCE: CAIN (Conflict Archive on the
Internet) http://cain.ulst.ac.uk
Research:
Fionnuala McKenna
POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
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, Ireland, through us, summons her
children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised
and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, 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 own 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 sovereign 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 that fundamental
right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby
proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our
lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its
welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish
Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman
and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal
rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to
pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts,
cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the
differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a
minority 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, hereby
constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in
trust for 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 Mac DIARMADA
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THOMAS MacDONAGH
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P. H. PEARSE
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EAMONN CEANNT
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JAMES CONNOLLY
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JOSEPH PLUNKETT
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