Easter Week Proclamation

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 50, 28 December 1922, Page 9

Easter Week Proclamation

"POBLACHT NA H’EIREANN.

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OS THE 4 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. ' • v

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 cart it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation 1 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 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 arid 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

fehd military affairs of the Republic in trust-for the people. We place the cause of the ‘lrish. 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 dishonor it by .cowardice, inhumanity- or rkpine. In this supreme hour. the Irish nation must, by its valor 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 MacDiarmadaJ' Thomas MacDonagh? P. H. Pearse, Eamonn ; Ceannt,

James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett.

The Song to which [they marched to Victory

SOLDIERS OF ERIN.

I’ll sing you a song, a soldier’s song, With cheery rousing chorus.

As round our blazing fires-we throng The starry heavens o’er us,

Impatient for the coming fight While we await the morning’s light,

Here in the silence of the night We’ll chant a soldier’s song.

, - CHORUS. Soldiers are we whose lives are pledged to Ireland. Some have come from a land beyond the wave.

Sworn to be free, no more our ancient Sireland Shall shelter the despot or the slave.

To-night we man the barnabweel In Erin’s cause, come woe or weal, ’Mid cannon’s roar and rifles peal,

We’ll chant a soldier’s song.

In valleys green, on towering crag,

Our fathers fought before us.

They conquered ’neath the same old flag That now is floating o’er us. We’re children of a fighting race

That never yet has known disgrace Then forward, march, the foe to face

And chant a soldier’s song.

Sons of the Gael! Men of the Pale! The long watched day is breaking, The serried ranks of Innisfail

Have set our tyrants quaking. Our camp fires now are burning low, See in the east a crimson glow. Out yonder lies our Saxon foe, Then chant a soldier’s song.

“The people, thank God, amidst their present sufferings, are good and fervent Catholics,” said ‘ Cardinal Logue a short time ago at Omeath, “but when peace comes,”, he went on, “I trust that the old days of the Irish Church will come back again, that the country will be studded with religious houses of men and women, and that as it won the title at the beginning it will preserve it to the end —the glorious title of the Island of Saints.” v ? " "