Introduction
This page
contains the text of the declaration made after the occupation of Dublin's
General Post Office during the 1916 Easter Uprising.
The Declaration
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, 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
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