Easter Monday - GPO Dublin

Hagar · 13-04-2009 10:47am #1

POBLACHT NA h-EIREANN

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMAN 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 organized and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organizations, 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 Irish woman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities of all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue 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 minority 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 Provision 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 DIERMADA, THOMAS MACDONAGH
P.H.PEARSE, EAMONN CEANNT
JAMES CONNOLLY, JOSEPH PLUNKETT

I just thought someone should post this.

Although sadly the major impetus for the Republic was derived from the martyrdom of the leaders above I have often wondered what would Ireland be like now if those men had lived on. Would we have had partition and the disasterous civil war which followed? How would we be governed now in the absence of "civil war" politics? No FF, no FG. Nobody still fighting the battle of Béal na mBláth. Would our politicians have governed us with a common goal, the good of the Irish people, rather than the petty point scoring that seems to occupy them now? Would a government born of an uprising, like the French, have been less prone to elitism, cronyism and corruption? Ireland then would have been like a newborn baby, how would we have grown up?

Anyone care to speculate?

Permabear · 13-04-2009 12:29pm

This post has been deleted.

Hagar · 13-04-2009 12:46pm

The French Govt is not immune to corruption but once caught, it has happened at local govt level in my region, the culprits go to gaol. Has that ever happened in Ireland?

silverharp · 13-04-2009 12:51pm

I'm guessing you would have been more partial to the original US constitution , is society just doomed to forget its history?

dlofnep · 13-04-2009 12:53pm

I read out the proclamation here in Ireland on Saturday. Good post. And yes, I think that the political spectrum would have alot more viable options for sure that this two horse race.

Permabear · 13-04-2009 12:53pm

This post has been deleted.

Hagar · 13-04-2009 1:03pm

FF Supporters don't think FF is corrupt, ie 44-48% of the population. Does that mean they're not?

Permabear · 13-04-2009 1:07pm

This post has been deleted.

Permabear · 13-04-2009 1:12pm

This post has been deleted.

PCPhoto · 13-04-2009 1:21pm

My opinion......
in simple - "political influence" is "corruption"

Hagar · 13-04-2009 1:22pm

Precisely the point I was making. If your TD gets you something you're entitled to that's fine. If he gets you something you're not entitled to then that's corruption. He's stealing that resource from the people who need it and are entitled to it. But of course you won't see it that way.

Permabear · 13-04-2009 1:38pm

This post has been deleted.

Hagar · 13-04-2009 1:44pm

And that is why Ireland comes out at 16th on the list you mentioned above. The place is so corrupt, it's the norm so it's not even reported in surveys as corruption. At a guess I'd say Ireland leaves France and maybe even Italy in the ha'penny place for strokes by politicians and their cronies.

RealityCheck · 13-04-2009 3:18pm

So we should have replaced british rule with a local caste system with monarchs elected by land owners and professionals ?

walrusgumble · 13-04-2009 3:49pm

no doubt our friend "the split" could have raised its ugly head at some point if the signatories of the proclamation had continued to live.

in my opinion,had they lived, i believe some form of war would have occured between the carson's unionist and the nationalists. pearse would have continued to see the tradition of force remained and carried on for he had said at the grave of o'donovan rossa - "......... ireland unfree shall never be at peace"

while in prison, an earlier "frognach" (sp)might have being establised, their with more taught out policies and methods of achieving their aims.

Permabear · 13-04-2009 3:52pm

This post has been deleted.

Pride Fighter · 13-04-2009 8:30pm

Donegalfella, from your posts it is obvious you want a decentralised, neo-liberal paradise. I dont think this is possible though as their will always be people trod upon by big business. You could argue that government trods upon us, but I'd prefer a government to trod upon me than a corporation.

Permabear · 13-04-2009 8:44pm

This post has been deleted.

O'Coonassa · 13-04-2009 8:47pm

Indeed. It's also funny that in the Fenian proclamation of the Republic half the nation are dismissed and derided as aristocratic locusts yet the 1916 Proclamation claims these people as cherished children. The 1916 Rising was about as Republican as the Pope.

O'Coonassa · 13-04-2009 8:49pm

You mean things like dropping slavery and introducing a cash economy?

Hagar · 13-04-2009 8:55pm

Isn't every school-child in the USA made stand and pledge alligiance every day before they start class? Would you call the USA a totalitarian state for expecting that of its citizens-to-be?

Pride Fighter · 13-04-2009 8:57pm

Alright, good stuff. I agree with what you are saying, particularly regarding the rubbish that came after freedom. Unfortunately it did not happen though. Maybe Ireland would have had a proper economy had we embraced free trade in the inter-war period and subsequent to the war, with Irish industry unaffected with WW2 we would have a huge advantage in the European markets post WW2.

Permabear · 13-04-2009 9:08pm

This post has been deleted.

Iwasfrozen · 13-04-2009 9:30pm

And we don't have that freedom in Ireland ?

RealityCheck · 13-04-2009 10:19pm

The fact is anarcho capitalism is a pure fantasy.

How do we go from law determined by the state to law determined by the market?

The túatha system flourished only because no external forces impacted upon it. There was no international or national trade. I mean it was a completely different era. It is simply irrational to use the túatha system of 500AD in the context of the world today.

Also,the fact that Gaelic Ireland is one of the only examples of an anarcho capitalist society, shows that it is an impossibility in the context of society now.

Hagar · 13-04-2009 11:12pm

Give it a try, see how far you get in the land of the free the home of the brave. They'll bate seven shades of shyte out of you and yours with the Patriot Act. You'll be blacking up your face and singing Yankee Doodle Dandy on the school bus every moring to try and be accepted in society again.

brianthebard · 13-04-2009 11:41pm

Your romanticisation of pre-Christian Ireland is even more rose tinted, constructed and ahistorical than those posited in the late nineteenth century by most Irish romanticists. Amazing.

Given the treatment of Irish people in Ireland and in Britain for the sin of being Irish for centuries, the denial of freedom of speech and press and general civil liberties, along with conscription by another name, the attempt to prevent workers from organising in a union, and many many other issues of the 1910s, I think the people involved in the rising were justified in believing it was better to throw off the shackles of Imperialism than continue to within the British Empire.

Now if the rebels are to be blamed, criticised or chided for lacking the ability to foresee the future, as you have done in your post, then I must admit it is hard to defend them. But instead if we situate the Rising as part of the broader spread of Irish history pre and post 1916, and consider the reasons for social phenomena such as "hardcore Catholic morality" then we might start to create a more sophisticated narrative.

Nodin · 14-04-2009 8:46am

"Some"? A violent system of tribes, clans etc, based on patronage....Hundreds of church raiding, cattle stealing, feuding Fianna Fails....Fair enough it sounds like great craic if you've a strong right arm, but its hardly a realistic model for society.

The Annals of the four masters is online. Though slow going in places, you should trawl through it.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 10:43am

This post has been deleted.

Permabear · 14-04-2009 10:58am

This post has been deleted.

Exile 1798 · 14-04-2009 11:12am

Who decides what tweaks are necessary?

Easter Monday - GPO Dublin

Comments