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
The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation (from left):
Padraig Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh,
Sean MacDermott, Joseph Plunkett & Eamonn Ceannt