THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: The Rising's leaders spoke for Ireland (a
In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she claim historically made by Irish
receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, insurrectionary movements)
summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
It’s starts in a very unconventionall for its
time, adressing men and wome. A call to
the people of Ireland to stand up for their
country.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish
revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Volunteers, and the Irish Citizen
and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers Army were central to the Rising;
and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her
discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal It expresses how after preparing
itself, she now seizes that moment and supported by her exiled themselves military and intellectually, they
children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in waited for the moment to strike and that
the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of moment is now. Even though they have
victory. the support of the Irish people that
emigrated to America and allies in Europe,
the believe that the insurrection has to
begin in motherlandIreland.
In this paragraph, the authors of this
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of
speech defend "the right of the people of
Ireland and to the unfettered (sin restricciones) control of Irish
Ireland to the ownership of Ireland". It is
destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible (irrevocable). The long
also remarkable that by this document they
usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has
state their intention of proclaiming the Irish
not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except
Republic as an Independent State
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 The Rising marked another wave of
have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and attempts to achieve independence through
again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby force of arms
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.
a guarantee of "religious and civil liberty,
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the
equal rights, and equal opportunities to all
allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic
its citizens", the first mention of gender
guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal
equality...
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.
What will happen next, until a General
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the
election is held. Irish women under British
establishment of a permanent National Government,
law were not allowed to vote.
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 a commitment to universal suffrage without
military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people. distinction of sex, a phenomenon limited at
the time to only a handful of countries and
which did not yet exist in the UK;
a promise of "cherishing all the children of
the nation equally". Although these words
are quoted since the 1990s by children's
rights advocates, "children of the nation"
refers to all Irish 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.
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Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Article History
Top Questions
What was the Easter Rising?
The Easter Rising was an Irish republican insurrection against the
British government in Ireland. It began in Dublin on April 24, 1916,
which was Easter Monday. The insurrection was planned by Patrick
Pearse, Tom Clarke, and several other leaders of the Irish
Republican Brotherhood.
When did the Easter Rising take place?
The Easter Rising began on April 24, 1916. Its leaders surrendered
on April 29, 1916.
How many leaders of the Easter Rising were executed?
Patrick Pearse and 14 other leaders of the rebellion were court-
martialed and executed by British authorities for their roles in the
Easter Rising. Though the uprising itself had been unpopular with
most of the Irish people, these executions created a backlash
against the British authorities and turned the dead republican
leaders into martyred heroes.
Easter Rising, Irish republican insurrection against British government in Ireland,
which began on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, in Dublin. The insurrection was
planned by Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, and several other leaders of the Irish
Republican Brotherhood, which was a revolutionary society within the nationalist
organization called the Irish Volunteers; the latter had about 16,000 members and
was armed with German weapons smuggled into the country in 1914. These two
organizations were supplemented by the Irish Citizen Army, an association of Dublin
workers formed after the failure of the general strike of 1913, and by the small Sinn
Féin party.
The uprising was planned to be nationwide in scope, but a series of mishaps led to its
being confined to Dublin alone. The British had learned of the planned uprising and
on April 21 arrested Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement in County Kerry for
running arms for the rebels. Eoin MacNeill, the leader of the Irish Volunteers,
therefore canceled mobilization orders for the insurgents, but Pearse and Clarke
went ahead with about 1,560 Irish Volunteers and a 200-man contingent of the
Citizen Army. On April 24 their forces seized the Dublin General Post Office and
other strategic points in Dublin’s city centre, and Pearse read aloud a proclamation
announcing the birth of the Irish republic. British troops soon arrived to put down
the rebellion, and for nearly a week Dublin was paralyzed by street fighting. British
artillery bombardments compelled Pearse and his colleagues to surrender on April
29.
Pearse and 14 other leaders of the rebellion were court-martialed and executed by
British authorities in the weeks that followed. Though the uprising itself had been
unpopular with most of the Irish people, these executions excited a wave of revulsion
against the British authorities and turned the dead republican leaders
into martyred heroes. The Easter Rising signaled the start of the republican
revolution in Ireland and led to the Irish War of Independence. Because Eamon de
Valera was the senior survivor of the rising, he gained much of his personal
popularity with the Irish people from that event.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Jeff Wallenfeldt.
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The Proclamation of Independence, as read out on the steps of the GPO by Padraig
Pearse during the Easter Rising of 1916, is arguably the most seminal and instantly
recognisable text ever produced in the history of Ireland, and its meaning is
fascinating. In just 487 words, it encapsulates the spirit of the seismic change
proposed by the rebels as they announced the Irish Republic would henceforth
function as an independent sovereign state.
Proclamation of Independence’s Call to Arms
The text of the Proclamation of Independence is a rousing call to arms and freely
mixes fact with aspiration and idealism. It draws on references to mythology and
history as it outlines the vaulting ambitions of its authors. For its time, it encompassed
a notably progressive point of view, pushing for a new political and landscape for
Ireland based on equality across the spectrum. All seven men were no doubt fully
aware that when they signed their names below this extraordinary proclamation, they
were also metaphorically signing their own death warrants. Deconstructing the
meaning of the Proclamation can help to shed light on the passionate convictions that
drove them to such extreme measures.
The first words in the proclamation – POBLACHT NA H EIREANN – are the only Irish
words used in the document. ‘Poblacht’ has over time come to mean ‘democracy’,
though it was not used in this way in 1916. The phrase ‘the Provisional Government of
the Irish to the people of Ireland’ signifies that the Proclamation is directed at the
people as one entity, as the true heirs of the land. The reference to Irish men and Irish
women is extremely enlightened for the time, as it hails women as equal to men
under the banner of the new Irish Republic. For context it should be remembered that
this was the era of the suffragettes in the UK and was a time when women across the
world were subjugated as a matter of course. The phrase ‘in the name of God’
respects the highly religious nature of the country at the time and was designed to
appeal to all God-fearing citizens. The ‘dead generations’ is a reference to those who
had already lost their lives fighting for independence, invoking the memory of their
sacrifice to inspire a new generation. To ‘strike for her freedom’ implies that violence
will be a necessary tactic to achieve an independent state.
Time for a Revolution
The main implication of the next paragraph is that this is a revolution that is perfectly
timed and that is the culmination of a well-organised and coordinated effort across the
IRB, the ICA and the IVF – essentially how the planets were perfectly aligned to seize
the day. The ‘Exiled Children’ are those who fled abroad during and after the Great
Famine, those who left as a rejection of British rule and the members of the
organisation Clan Na nGael. The ‘gallant allies in Europe’ refers to German support,
although this is not explicitly stated. It was this phrase that pushed the rebellion over
a line in the minds of the British, elevating it and ultimately leading to the death
sentences for the seven men. The assertion that the Irish nation, in ‘relying on her
own strengths, strikes in full confidence of victory’ was baseless. From Easter Monday
the leaders were entirely aware that their rebellion would be put down, as they had
neither enough men nor enough weapons to defeat the British forces.
The third paragraph outlines the rebels’ vision for a new and improved country and
justifies the measures taken to achieve it. The ‘right of the people to ownership’ is a
pivotal sentence, as the issue of land ownership had been a sore point for many since
as far back as the 17th century. The ‘unfettered control of Irish destinies’ makes it
clear that nothing less that total independence would be deemed acceptable. The
leaders of the rebellion legitimised their use of violence by reasoning that they were
the latest in a succession of radicals who ‘six times during the past 300 years’ had
declared that the use of arms was pivotal to achieving independence from Britain,
with the implication being that the Rising was simply the latest manifestation of what
was already a firmly established tradition of nationalism.
The first sentence of the fourth paragraph personifies the Irish Republic, who speaks
to the people, claiming the loyalty of every citizen. The framework of the new
Republic is set out clearly – guaranteeing civil and religious liberties for all and
offering equal opportunities and rights to every citizen. This newly declared Republic
would rise above political and religious tensions and the rules of an ‘alien
government’, and every Irish man and women would play their part in the new utopia
– a pluralistic and inclusive nation. The signatories offered these progressive ideals to
underline their pure intentions, however outlandish they may have appeared to the
majority of people at that time the Proclamation was written.
The fifth paragraph of the Proclamation of Independence starts, ‘Until our arms
have brought the opportune moment’ – that is, violent means are necessary to order
to institute a ‘permanent National Government’ that would be fully representative.
The meaning here is that the signatories envisage an inclusive government that would
serve the people of Ireland and act in their collective best interests.
A Sacrifice for the Greater Good
The final paragraph of the proclamation of Independence puts the success of the
rebellion in the hands of the ‘Most High God’, meaning that the seven believed that
their planned insurrection fell within acceptable moral and religious boundaries. The
reference to ‘sacrifice’ implies that the rebellion is all part of the greater good, and
that loss of life is worthwhile if a free Ireland is the result. It is strongly implied that
the Rising was not simply politically motivated, but that it was the first step on the
way to a seismic change both socially and economically. It painted an idealistic
picture of an independent Irish state that would care about all its citizens equally, a
socialist concept that was close to the heart of Connolly in particular. Its innate
optimism fell into stark relief following the unsuccessful Rising and the death of its
main proponents. Over the following years, the energy of the nation was to be almost
wholly directed towards the fight for political change, while the issues of economic,
social and civil reform, so central to the stated aims of the Proclamation, faded into
the background.
