For Ireland Dear

(Saturday 3/26 PM)

Ireland, located just over 50 miles off the coast of England, was occupied and its native population oppressed by Britain for 800 years. By 1915 Britain had garrisoned 20,000 soldiers in 300 barracks throughout the island nation. On Easter Monday 1916 a small handful of Irish rose up in arms to throw off that oppression and win their nation's freedom. 

The Poblacht na hEireann

The republican leadership crafted the Poblacht na hEireann (Proclamation of the Irish 

Republic) as Ireland's Declaration of Independence:

"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...."

The Poblacht was a visionary document, declaring:

"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."

The Poblacht also set the framework for the establishment of a government:

"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 sufferages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and miitary affairs of the Republic in trust for the people."

Collins Barracks exhibition

Today we visited an exhibition of the Rising at Collins Barracks (formerly the British Royal Barracks) in downtown Dublin, that began with a reading of the Proclamation. We were moved by the passion, selflessness, and devotion to the cause of Irish freedom shown by the writings and history of the people who sacrificed themselves to this cause. On a Monday morning in April several hundred men and women, mostly of the middle and professional classes, walked away from their comfortable homes and daily routines to launch a movement for Irish freedom and dignity. Many understood that failure was likely but they did it anyway. And for their sacrifice, when failure did inevitably come, they faced the anger and derision of the rest of Dublin's population. That anger would change, though, as England began its brutal executions of the Rising's leaders.

God Save Ireland

God save Ireland, cried the heroes,

God save Ireland cried they all,

Whether on the scaffold high

Or the battlefield we die,

Oh, what matter when, for Ireland dear we fall.