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 the 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 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 exhaltation 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.
Signed on behalf the Provisional
Government
Thomas J.Clarke
Sean Mac Diarmada Thomas MacDonagh
P.H.Pearse Eamonn Ceannt
James Connolly Joseph Plunkett
