First Dáil: ‘No going back on Declaration of Independence for All Ireland’ – Ó Brádaigh

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday January 21, 2009 23:00 by Saoirse - Republican Sinn Fein saoirse at iol dot ie 223 Parnell St Dublin 1 018729747

Address delivered by the President of Republican Sinn Fein Ruairi O Bradaigh on January 20 at the ceremony organised by Republican Sinn Fein to mark the 90th anniversay of the First Dail.

The essential difference between the Black-and-Tan War and previous uprisings against British rule, a veteran of that period (1919-21) told me was that “We took over the machinery of government” from the English.
In other words, having won the overwhelming support of the Irish people in the All-Ireland election of December 1918, Sinn Féin – now a definitely Republican organisation – proceeded to organise an alternative Irish government.
The people themselves became involved in a system of passive resistance to foreign rule. The first step in this regard was the assembly of an All-Ireland Parliament, Dáil Éireann Uile, on January 21, 1919 – 90 years ago. This evening, in the centre of Dublin, we commemorate and celebrate that historic event.
That heroic generation of Irish people faced the might of a British Empire at its peak in 1919. They confronted an empire which two months earlier had emerged victoriously, with American assistance of course, from WWI and now had control over German and Turkish colonies in Africa and the Middle East in addition to its other global possessions.
Yet, inspired by the men and women of Easter 1916, the generation of our parents and grandparents went on to put the first breach in world-wide colonialism and give an example to oppressed peoples everywhere.
This mobilisation of the Irish people, however, did not just happen. It had its roots in Fenianism, 50 years earlier, and the success of the Land War of 1879-82. British Prime Minister Gladstone, in introducing the first Land Act, said that he was impressed by “the intensity of Fenianism”.
The foundation of the GAA in 1894 and of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1893, the Centenary commemorations of 1798 and the anti-recruiting campaign during the Boer War of 1899-1902 followed on. After that came the Irish Literary Revival, Inghinidhe na hÉireann and the Abbey Theatre.
Cumann Camógaíochta na nGael in 1904 and Sinn Féin in 1905 were in sequence founded as were the Irish Transport and Workers’ Union and Na Fianna Éireann in 1909.
With 1913 came the great Lock-Out and the birth of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army. The failure of Home Rule was eclipsed by the Easter Rising of 1916. In 1917-18 six by-elections were won by Sinn Féin and the Conscription crisis swung the mass of people behind the Republican Movement.
The Irish Parliamentary Party stood helpless and they in turn abandoned Westminster. The 1916 Rising was vindicated by the people when the 1918 election gave more than 70% of seats to Sinn Féin. These were the stepping-stones to the First Dáil over a period of 50 years.
The 1919-21 phase of the war for Ireland’s honour and independence was essentially a struggle between two rival administrations – the English and the Irish: the Dáil courts versus the Crown courts; the Republican Police versus the Royal Irish Constabulary (which included the Black-and-Tans and the Auxiliaries); the British Local Government Board versus the Dáil Department of Local Government; and of course the Irish Republican Army versus the British Army of Occupation.
In the local council elections of January and June 1920, Sinn Féin again swept the boards and secured a majority on 75% of local councils. These bodies repudiated the English LG Board and gave their allegiance to the Dáil Department.
At Easter 1920 raids were made by the Volunteers on Income Tax offices throughout the country. These places were set on fire and every book and document connected with the collection of taxes destroyed. For some time previous to this, outlying police barracks were being evacuated and the peelers gathered into the larger towns, on account of the successful raids for arms carried out by the IRA. Over 300 of these empty barracks were burned down in a single night.
In May 1921 the main centre of the British administration in Ireland, the Dublin Custom House was burned down. This vast building housed their Inland Revenue, Customs Offices, Estate Duty Department and Local Government Board. British Prime Minister Lloyd George went on record admitting publicly that: “The King’s Writ no longer runs in the three Southern Provinces of Ireland.” In point of fact it did not run in a large part of Ulster either.
The First All-Ireland Dáil met and carried out its business 14 times in 1919, three times in 1920 and on four occasions in 1921. In September 1919 it was declared an illegal body by the English government yet it met and did its business as usual. A National Land Commission was constituted to acquire and hold land. An amalgamation of the “Poor Law” unions or Workhouses was carried through successfully.
In fact a cabinet of seven Ministers was operating, Home Affairs, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Labour, Industries, Finance, Local Government under the Príomh-Aire or President, including Heads of Departments for Agriculture and Propaganda and a Directorate of Trade and Commerce.
On August 20, 1919, on the motion of the Minister for Defence, Cathal Brugha, seconded by Terence MacSwiney, an oath of Allegiance was adopted for all Dáil Deputies, all Volunteers of the IRA, the officers and clerks to the Dáil and any other body or individual who in the opinion of the Dáil should take it. On March 11, 1921, An Dáil accepted that it should function until it was reduced to five Deputies when it should resolve itself into a Provisional Government, ie “to the Volunteers as the Military Body”.
Today, 90 years subsequent to the setting up of that First (All-Ireland) Dáil, its mandate has been and is questioned by those who opposed and still reject all that the original Dáil 32-Chontae stands for. They charge that a mere 46-47% of the votes cast in December 1918 were for Sinn Féin.
They ignore the fact that in a quarter of the single seat constituencies in Ireland, Sinn Féin candidates were returned unopposed. The whole story indicates that with 73 seats out of 105, Sinn Féin had an overwhelming majority of 70%. If the four university seats – which gave a second vote to graduates – were not included, that majority would be even higher, and if women aged over 21 and under 30 years had the vote, the Republican plurality would have been greater still.
Faithful Republicans today agree with Dorothy Macardle in regard to January 21, 1919. She stated in her book The Irish Republic: “For Irish Republicans what had been done on that day was a national act as grave as was the Declaration of Independence in the United States for the American people – an act from which the nation could not withdraw.”
The Irish people, acting as a unit, had determined their own future and there could be no going back on that action. The vote taken in 1998 was under the threat of “another 30 years of warfare” and under the ruling of two successive British Secretaries that the vote in the Six Occupied Counties “would be the decisive vote”. In plain language the result would be based on the Unionist Veto.
For Republicans the task today is to implement the Declaration of Independence of the First (All-Ireland) Dáil and make it effective through the means of the ÉIRE NUA proposals for a federation of the four provinces with optimum local devolution of power.
ENDS