Easter Proclamation

The Easter Proclamation, officially referred to as the Proclamation of the Republic, was a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising in Ireland, which began on 24 April, 1916. In it the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, styling itself the "Provisional Government of the Irish Republic", proclaimed Irish independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The reading of the proclamation by Pádraig Pearse outside the General Post Office (GPO) in Sackville Street (now called O'Connell Street), Dublin's main thoroughfare, marked the beginning of the Rising. The proclamation was modelled on a similar independence proclamation issued during the 1803 rebellion by Irish rebel Robert Emmet.

The document is headed Poblacht na hÉireann, which is Irish Republic in the Irish language.

Before reading the proclamation (to the bemusement and some derision from shoppers and passers-by), Pearse and other Republican leaders seized the GPO and made it their military headquarters, flying the new flag of the republic (see image below) from the flag-pole instead of the Union Jack. The green, white and orange tricolour was also flown on a lower flag-pole. The GPO, the Easter Proclamation and the tricolour (which later came to be seen as the flag of the republic, replacing the original green flag, which is now on display in the National Museum of Ireland) are the three most identifiable symbols of the Easter Rising, alongside the leaders, such as Pearse, Tom Clarke, James Connolly and others.

The text of the Easter Proclamation

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 usurption 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 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 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.

Principles of the proclamation

Though the Rising failed in military terms, the principles of the Proclamation to varying degrees influenced the thinking of later generations of Irish politicians. The document consisted of a number of assertions:

that the Rising's leaders, though unelected, spoke for Ireland (a claim historically made by Irish insurrectionary movements);

that the Rising marked another wave of attempts to achieve independence through force of arms;

that the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army were central to the Rising;

"the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland", a statement seen by some contemporaries as quasi-socialist and which some conservatives found troublesome (similar assertions in later declarations, notably the Democratic Programme adopted by the First Dáil in 1919, were deleted or toned down);

that the form of government of the declared Irish Republic was to be a republic;

a guarantee of "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens", the first mention of gender equality, given that Irish women were not allowed to vote;

a commitment to universal suffrage, a phenomenon limited at the time to only a handful of countries and not including Britain;

a promise to cherish "all the children of the nation equally" (though often misinterpreted as referring to Irish children and their rights, it actually meant people of all religions, who were all seen as 'children of the nation').

The printing and distribution of the text

The proclamation had been printed secretly prior to the Rising. Because of its secret printing by a small printers, problems arose which affected the layout and design. In particular, because of a shortage of lettering, the document was printed in two halves, leading to a proliferation of 'half copies', most of which were destroyed by British soldiers in the aftermath of the Rising. The typesetter lacked a sufficient supply of same size and font letters, and as a result the latter half of the document used smaller es than the rest of the text, a distinctive feature of the document (though only noticed when studied up close). The language suggested that the original copy of the proclamation had actually been signed by the Rising's leaders. However no evidence has ever been found, nor do any contemporary records mention, the existence of an actually signed copy, though had such a copy existed, it could easily have been destroyed in the aftermath of the Rising by someone (in the British military, a member of the public or a Rising participant trying to destroy potentially incriminating evidence) who did not appreciate its historic importance.

The signatories

One question sometimes raised is why the first name among the 'signatories' was not Pearse but Tom Clarke, a veteran republican. Had the arrangement of names been alphabetical, Eamon Ceannt would have appeared on top. Clarke's widow maintained that it was because the plan had been for Clarke, as a famed veteran, to become the President of the Provisional Republic. Such an explanation would certainly explain his premier position. However others associated with the Rising dismissed her claims, which she made in her memoirs. Later documents issued by the rebels gave Pearse pride of place, though as 'Commanding in Chief the Forces of the Irish Republic, and President of the Provisional Government', "The Provisional Government to the Citizens of Dublin" proclamation. (National Library of Ireland poster collection) not 'President of the Republic'. Whether the plan had ever been to have Clarke as a symbolic head of state and Pearse as head of government, or was simply that Pearse was always to be central but with statements ambiguously describing his title, remains a mystery about which historians still speculate.

All seven signatories of the proclamation were executed by the British military in the aftermath of the Rising, being viewed as having committed treason in wartime (i.e., the First World War).Dublin Gazette Proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Ivor Churchill, Baron Wimborne, on 9 May 1916 had proclaimed Dublin under martial law, with the statement that subsequent actions by the Dublin Castle administration would be taken in accordance with that declaration. British political leaders regarded the executions initially as unwise, later as a catastrophe, with the British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and later prime minister David Lloyd George stating that they regretted allowing the British military to treat the matter as a matter of military law in wartime, rather than insisting that the leaders were treated under civilian criminal law. Though initially deeply unsympathetic to the Rising (the leading Irish nationalist newspaper, the Irish Independent called for their execution), Irish public opinion switched and became more sympathetic due to manner of their treatment and executions. Eventually Asquith's government ordered a halt to the executions and insisted that those not already executed be dealt with through civilian, not military, law. By that stage all the signatories and a number of others had been executed.

The document today

Full copies of the Easter Proclamation are now treated as a revered Irish nationalist icon, and a copy was sold at auction for over €700,000 in April, 2006. A copy owned (and later signed as a memento) by Rising participant Sean T. O'Kelly was presented by O'Kelly, by then President of Ireland, to the Irish parliament buildings, Leinster House, where it is on permanent display in the main foyer. Other copies are on display in the GPO (headquarters of the Rising and the place where the Proclamation was first read), the National Museum of Ireland and other museums worldwide. Facsimile copies are for sale to tourists in Ireland. Copies of the text are often displayed in Irish schools.

Footnotes

Additional reading

Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins (ISBN 0091741068)
Tim Pat Coogan, de Valera (ISBN 009175030X)
Dorothy McCardle, The Irish Republic
Arthur Mitchell and Padraig Ó Snodaigh, Irish Political Documents: 1916–1949
John O'Connor, The 1916 Proclamation

Official documents of Ireland | History of Ireland 1801-1922

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