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HISTORIC IRISH DOCUMENTS |
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HISTORIC SINN FÉIN DECLARATION Ruairi O"Bradaigh - Nov. 2, 1986 Poblacht na hÉireann Irish Republic
Whereas such a decision conflicts with the two fundamental principles on which the organization is based and which are enshrined in the Constitution of Sinn Féin, viz."(a) That the allegiance of Irishmen and Irishwomen is due to the Sovereign Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916. (b) That the sovereignty and unity of the Republic are inalienable and non-judicable": and, Whereas the experience of six decades of attempts to win full Irish freedom through the Leinster House partitionist assembly has shown such efforts to be a total failure, culminating in recent years in full collaboration with the London Government, including extradition of political prisoners and the spending of one million pounds per day of Irish taxpayers' money in protecting the border for England: and, Whereas, no group, minority or majority, claiming to serve the historic cause of national freedom and sovereignty, can grant recognition to the British-created institutions of Leinster House, Stormont and Westminster. We, Irish Republicans who wish to uphold the basic Republican position enshrined in the Sinn Féin Constitution until today and meeting in public session declare as follows: We renew our allegiance to the Sovereign Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916 and which was endorsed by the majority of the people of Ireland, acting as a unit, in 1918. We uphold the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in national Parliament, Dáil Éireann, on January 21st, 1919 and heroically defended in arms by succeeding generations of Irish Republicans. We will pursue the Republican objectives by continuing the organization of Republican Sinn Féin whose object will be to organize the Irish people, at home and abroad, in opposition to British interference in the affairs of the historic Irish Nation: to defend the interests of the Irish people against all forms of colonialism and exploitation and exploitation, political, social, economic and cultural: and to devise policies for the emancipation of all the Irish people, including a system of government which will cherish all the children of the Nation equally and give all a truly democratic voice in the government of their community, by the establishment of a Democratic Socialist Republic. We salute the memory of our patriot dead who shall always inspire us and we express our solidarity with the families of those who died in the cause of Irish freedom in recent years. To all our Republican prisoners we pledge ourselves to carry on the struggle for which they are now suffering so much. We uphold the historic right of the Irish people to use whatever degree of controlled and disciplined force is necessary in resisting English aggression and bringing about an English withdrawal from our country forever. We confidently ask all the Irish people for their support in our endeavors to make the Irish Republic a living reality. Our exiled men and women and all others who have helped us so far are invited to continue their support, which has always been appreciated. Tuigimid go maith go mbeidh deacrachtaí romhainn ins an obair seo ar fad agus glacaimid na cúraimí seo orainn le dóchas go mbeidh muintir na hÉireann fial lena gcúnamh mar a bhí i gcónaí. Seasaimid le Poblacht 1916 2nd November 1986
IRISH
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Enacted by the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland 21st January 1919
And whereas for seven hundred years the Irish People has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation. And whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people. And whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army, acting on behalf of the Irish People. And whereas the Irish People is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to ensure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to constitute a national policy based upon the people's will with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen. And whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic. Now, therefore, we, the elected Representatives of the ancient Irish People in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish Nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command. We ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish People alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance. We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison. We claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter. In the name of the Irish People we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God Who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His Divine blessing on this the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to freedom. (Dail Eireann: Minutes of the Proceedings of the First Parliament of the Republic of Ireland, 21st January 1919.)
(to top of page)The 1918 Sinn Fein General Election ManifestoGeneral Election Manifesto to the Irish PeopleThe coming General Election is fraught with vital possibilities for the future of our nation. Ireland is faced with the question whether this generation wills it that she is to march out into the full sunlight of freedom, or is to remain in the shadow of a base imperialism that has brought and ever will bring in its train naught but evil for our race. Sinn Féin gives Ireland the opportunity of vindicating her honour and pursuing with renewed confidence the path of national salvation by rallying to the flag of the Irish Republic. Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic. Sinn Féin stands less for a political party than for the Nation; it represents the old tradition of nationhood handed on from dead generations; it stands by the Proclamation of the Provisional Government of Easter, 1916, reasserting the inalienable right of the Irish Nation to sovereign independence, reaffirming the determination of the Irish people to achieve it, and guaranteeing within the independent Nation equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens. Believing that the time has arrived when Ireland's voice for the principle of untrammelled National self-determination should be heard above every interest of party or class, Sinn Féin will oppose at the Polls every individual candidate who does not accept this principle. The policy of our opponents stands condemned on any test, whether of principle or expediency. The right of a nation to sovereign independence rests upon immutable natural law and cannot be made the subject of a compromise. Any attempt to barter away the sacred and inviolate rights of nationhood begins in dishonour and is bound to end in disaster. The enforced exodus of millions of our people, the decay of our industrial life, the ever-increasing financial plunder of our country, the whittling down of the demand for the ‘Repeal of the Union’, voiced by the first Irish Leader to plead in the Hall of the Conqueror to that of Home Rule on the Statute Book, and finally the contemplated mutilation of our country by partition, are some of the ghastly results of a policy that leads to national ruin. Those who have endeavoured to harness the people of Ireland to England's war-chariot, ignoring the fact that only a freely-elected Government in a free Ireland has power to decide for Ireland the question of peace and war, have forfeited the right to speak for the Irish people. The Green Flag turned red in the hands of the Leaders, but that shame is not to be laid at the doors of the Irish people unless they continue a policy of sending their representatives to an alien and hostile assembly, whose powerful influence has been sufficient to destroy the integrity and sap the independence of their representatives. Ireland must repudiate the men who, in a supreme crisis for the nation, attempted to sell her birthright for the vague promises of English Ministers, and who showed their incompetence by failing to have even these promises fulfilled. The present Irish members of the English Parliament constitute an obstacle to be removed from the path that leads to the Peace Conference. By declaring their will to accept the status of a province instead of boldly taking their stand upon the right of the nation they supply England with the only subterfuge at her disposal for obscuring the issue in the eyes of the world. By their persistent endeavours to induce the young manhood of Ireland to don the uniform of our seven-century old oppressor, and place their lives at the disposal of the military machine that holds our Nation in bondage, they endeavour to barter away and even to use against itself the one great asset still left to our Nation after the havoc of centuries. Sinn Féin goes to the polls handicapped by all the arts and contrivances that a powerful and unscrupulous enemy can use against us. Conscious of the power of Sinn Féin to secure the freedom of Ireland the British Government would destroy it. Sinn Féin, however, goes to the polls confident that the people (sic) of this ancient nation will be true to the old cause and will vote for the men who stand by the principles of Tone, Emmet, Mitchel, Pearse and Connolly, the men who disdain to whine to the enemy for favours, the men who hold that Ireland must be as free as England or Holland, or Switzerland or France, and whose demand is that the only status befitting this ancient realm is the status of a free nation. Issued by the standing committee of Sinn Féin. PROCLAMATION OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC POBLACHT NA H-EIREANN THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
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,
The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation
( from left): All of the above men were executed by the British Government for their efforts in trying to secure a free Ireland!
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