What does the proclamation mean to you?Does it have any relevance today?Which party is living up to the proclamation Sinn Fein?Republican Sinn Fein?Fianna Fail? ...Workers party? Should i even include Fine gael?Best not!...
I would like to hear everyones opinion on this.
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 last three hundred years they have asserted it to 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 all of 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, 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, in humanity, 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, Thomas MacDonagh,
P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt,
James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett
Breaking with usual practice here, the Proclamation is worth quoting in full. This is the wellspring of not just the modern Sinn Fein - the 1905 Sinn Fein had nothing to do with the planning of the Rising and was blamed through lazy British journalism afterwards. Labour through Connolly and the Citizen Army, Fianna Fail through DeValera, Fine Gael through Collins and Mulcahy all can claim involvement in the Rising by the gallantry of their founders.
Pearse and the other signatories of the Proclamation were men of honour who surrendered to avoid unnecessary civilian bloodshed. For me the crucial phrase is
Operations like Omagh could never be squared with this IMHO.we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, in humanity, or rapine
The delegation of authority into the Provisional Government has had one great weakness - the desire of successive IRA army councils and lately the micro splitter Continuity Army Council, all with the aura of Apostolic Succession and with little or any reference to the citizens of Ireland that they purport to govern.
The IRB under Collins accepted the Treaty - surely the fundamental black hole of non-accountability to the People that Army Council government represented was never the intention of the original revolutionaries?
What makes you think that?Originally Posted by RBinge
My source is Tim Pat Coogan's biography of Michael Collins.
Tim Pat Coogan wrote:
During the Treaty negotiations:Sometime during June or July (1919) Collins was elected President of the Supreme Council of the IRB
In fact Collins secured the IRB's prior approval for the wording of the Oath which he eventually assented to in the TreatyThe Oath which Collins had prepared after his IRB consultations was accepted with insignificant changesMoya (Llewelyn-Davies) clearly did not realise that Collins had kept the IRB suitably informed before signing the Treaty.The IRB put on what Childers termed 'an organised Army reception' for Collins and Griffith when they arrived at Dun Laoghaire. Collins took advantage of it to ask Tom Cullen, 'What are our fellows saying?' Cullen replied, 'What is good enough for you is good enough for them'. It was far from good enough for de Valera, Brugha and Stack.
The proclamation is of vital importance to me. It is central to Irish republicanism. No one party can claim ownership of it. Nonetheless, this doesn't mean that any party can just jump on the bandwagon. Can anyone really suggest that the state we have today is based on the ideals of this document? Fianna Fáil have been in power for over two thirds of the time for the past seventy-five years and made no attempt to implement it.
Where the problem lies with the proclamation is that the sentiment is something most people would claim to support. You are fighting a losing battle if you try saying to a FFr that they don't support civil and religious liberties etc. The question is, what is being done to actively achieve the type of Ireland envisaged in the proclamation.
"John Bull has got his hand down your pants and his fist around your bollox and you can't see it."
No RBinge, I meant this bit:
The IRB never showed any major hangup about popular approval before - so why do you think the signers of the Proclamation cared about electoral mandates or accountability?surely the fundamental black hole of non-accountability to the People that Army Council government represented was never the intention of the original revolutionaries?
That is a very good question and one anyone in a position of elected authority should ask themselves. To paraphrase Connolly, what if the only tangible mark of independence was the painting of Postboxes green? Maybe the explicit pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness or Liberty, Equality and Fraternity?
We fell back too often in the twentieth century into a fallow vision more akin to Petain's Family, Work and Faith slogan of his Collaborationist government and into authoritarian modes rather than creating the sort of Ireland that made us all happier, rather than a few conservative clerics and a tiny professional class that had a vested interest in a poorly educated and poorly off mass of people that submitted to their will or emigrated.
A very good question also. The simple answer is that I don't know. The IRB did appear to care about mandates afterwards presumably to prevent the government of an independent Ireland degenerating into a military dictatorship.
There was a sea change starting to happen in Nationalist politics. John Redmond's simple assumptions about British intentions after the War were being challenged. The All for Ireland League, the mainly Cork based cross-community alternative to the IPP rejected Redmond's analysis and had eight MPs elected prior to 1918. With the advance of Sinn Fein the AFIL endorsed Sinn Fein and went out of business. With the hindsight of the Great War, the conscription crisis and the hard hearted treatment of the Rebels, a great deal of the IPP didn't bother to stand against Sinn Fein. In some cases like John Dillon, the IPP leader, eventually came to support the Sinn Fein position and retired from politics.
The Continuity Army Council is neither "micro" nor "splitter". It is the lawful successor to the Army Council of 1938. As such, your mention of "lately" is also inaccurate - it has always been the position since 1938.
"I hereby declare that the Continuity Executive and the Continuity Army Council are the lawful Executive and Army Council respectively of the Irish Republican Army, and that the governmental authority, delegated in the Proclamation of 1938, now resides in the Continuity Army Council, and its lawful successors."
Comdt. General Thomas Maguire
who are you ? keep it i will uphold it it the proclomation which i was born with .till i die ok francis from ?
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