NYC Remembers Easter 1916

by NIFC - National Irish Freedom Committee Sat Apr 07, 2007 20:57 nifcmem at optonline dot net

Cumann na Saoirse Náisiúnta
National Irish Freedom Committee
http://irishfreedom.net

Easter Message 2007

On this weekend ninety one years ago, Padraic Pearse proclaimed on behalf on the Irish people, the right of the Irish people to a sovereign 32-county Irish Republic. That historic Proclamation was read from the steps of the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin at the onset of the military uprising against the British Empire’s seven century long colonization of Ireland.

This is the 91st anniversary of that historic event. That proclamation and the subsequent uprising was a defining moment in modern Irish history. It is considered the most sacred of days in the Irish Republican calendar. Republicans have never missed an Easter commemoration since then either in Ireland or here in America.

This is a particularly important anniversary that we commemorate here today because politicians in both the twenty-six and six county partitionist sectarian states are redoubling their efforts to maintain and safeguard the status quo, thus securing their own selfish interests as well as Britain’s illegitimate occupation of the six county state.

The latest betrayal by the Provisionals, who abandoned Republican principles in 1986, is by far the most insidious and blatant of all the betrayals to the 32-county sovereign Republic proclaimed by Pearse on the steps of the GPO in 1916. Prior betrayals, although unforgivable, did not reach the level of deceit and treachery as did the Good Friday /St. Andrews Agreement embraced by the Provisionals.

Other erstwhile comrades who abandoned republican principles did not join forces with the British partitionist establishment to rule on their behalf. What they did instead was embrace the partition of Ireland created by British Government of Ireland Act enacted in 1920, establishing their own ruling elite in the 26-county state and proceeded to rule accordingly. They did not defile the Republican cause by holding on to the name ‘Sinn Fein’ as have the present-day Provisionals.

On the other hand the Provisionals became fully integrated into the British establishment, recognized and embraced Britain’s governing institutions in the occupied six counties and paid de facto allegiance to the British crown. After 30 years of conflict and the loss of over 3,500 lives this was what the Provisionals achieved. The loss of so many Volunteers and innocent citizens did not faze the Provisional leadership whose aim, all along, was to get, what they considered to be their rightful reward, a piece of the British controlled partitionist pie.

All of these erstwhile comrades including the Provisionals will continue to profess allegiance to the Proclamation of 1916 and will undoubtedly attend various commemorations to mark the anniversary. They will make speeches pontificating over the blood sacrifice of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and will, unashamedly, claim commonality with their cause. How ironic that those who signed on the Good Friday /St Andrews agreement have the gall to claim allegiance to a 32-county sovereign Irish Republic that so many have died for over the centuries.

Politicians who signed that agreement or any other agreement that supports or recognizes any British claim to Irish soil is akin to affixing their belated signature to the death warrants of Padraic Pearse and his sixteen comrades.

As their reward for embracing and promoting the Good Friday/St. Andrews agreement the British gave the Provisionals their piece of the pie which amounted to legislative and ministerial positions in their reconstituted Stormont puppet government. They were also afforded personal protection by the British security forces, and a free hand to control opposition to the continued British presence in the six occupied counties.

Pearse himself was well aware that everybody who claims to be republicans was not necessarily so. He wrote during Christmas 1915, mere months before the Easter rising;

“If we today are fighting for something either greater than or less than the thing our fathers fought for, either our fathers did not fight for freedom at all, or we are not fighting for freedom. If I do not hold the faith of Tone; and if Tone was not a heretic, then I am. If Tone said, ‘BREAK the connection with England’, and if I say ‘MAINTAIN the connection with England’, I may be preaching a saner (as I am certainly preaching a safer) gospel than his, but I am obviously not preaching the same gospel. Separatism, in fact, is the national position. Whenever an Irish leader has taken up a position different from the national position he has been repudiated by the next generation. ... The chain of the Separatist tradition has never once snapped during the centuries”

It is clear from Pearse’s prophetic words who will be repudiated. Yet, the Republican Movement continues to safeguard the ideals of Easter Week.

We, the Irish Diaspora in America gathered here today reaffirm our commitment to the same.

We will continue to support and publicize the plight of Irish republican prisoners in HM Maghaberry Prison, who are fighting for political status while engaged in an on going prison protest in conditions that are eerily reminiscent of the period prior to the hunger strikes of 1981.

We will also continue to promote the Eire Nua program that proposes a federal solution based on the four historic provinces of Ireland. This comprehensive Irish authored political program is designed to achieve a just and lasting peace in the context of a British withdrawal.

National Irish Freedom Committee
Cumann na Saoirse Náisiúnta
http://irishfreedom.net

by Easter Week 1916-2007 - POBLACHT NA H-ÉIREANN Tue Apr 03, 2007 20:04

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
POBLACHT NA H-ÉIREANN
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.

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 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 Irish 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 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 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

Tomás Ó Cléirigh
Seán Mac Diarmada Tomás Mac Donncha
Pádraig Mac Piarais Seosamh Pluincéad
Séamas Ó Conghaile Eamonn Ceannt