Brothers:
Today (April 24, 2010) marks the anniversary of the Easter Uprising! The proclamation itself is listed below. Even after having read it countless times, it is still a moving document to me. A brief history of the events is posted below. I hope you will take the time to share this with your family. It is how we keep our lineage, our history, and our love of Ireland alive. 26 + 6 = 1.
May our patron, St. Patrick, Our Lady of Knock, and our Lord watch over you all….and as always….
In Friendship, Unity, and true Christian Charity,
Gary Duncan, President
Lackawanna Co. AOH
On 24th April, 1916 the General Post Office was occupied by the heroic freedom fighters of Eire. Pádraig Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic to a gathering of citizens on that day. .Here is what that document said:
POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
___________________________
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE 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 organized and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organizations, 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 dishonor it by cowardice, in humanity,
or rapine. 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 Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh,
P. H. Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt,
James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett
Six locations in Dublin were seized & reinforced with armaments by the Irish Volunteers on that day: the Four Courts, Boland’s Mill, St. Stephen’s Green, Jacobs Factory, the South Dublin Union, and of course, the GPO!. Attempts to seize Dublin Castle and Trinity College failed. The inability to seize Trinity College was most unfortunate. This failure restricted the means of mass communication by the Volunteers. Of equal misfortune was the failure of country wise support by Irish Citizenry to render impossible the arrival of English reinforcements. By Wednesday the revolutionaries were outnumbered by 20 to 1. The English secured a cordon about the city and closed in. They concentrated their attack on the GPO while none of the other strongholds came under the same sort of concentrated bombardment.
The Helga, a “gun ship,” arrived in Dublin and field guns were mounted on Trinity College. The effect of the continuous shelling of O’Connell Street virtually destroyed it and the surrounding areas. By Friday the GPO was engulfed in flames and Pearse gave the command to surrender. 450 people were dead; many of who were civilians, with over 2500 wounded. The city was in ruins with the damage estimated at a massive 2 Million
pounds. Over 3,500 people were subsequently arrested countrywide (including DeValera and Collins), although 1,500 were freed after questioning. 1,841 of these were interned without trial in England, and 171 were tried by secret court martial resulting in 170 convictions. 90 were sentenced to death but 75 of these sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The seven signatories of the proclamation of independence (Pearse, Connolly, Clarke, MacDonagh, MacDermott, Plunkett, and Ceannt) were all executed to the outrage of the Irish public who had now begun to revise their opinion of the insurgents to that of a heroic nature.
Then and now: how names have changed:
* Sackville Street is now O’Connell Street.
* The Imperial Hotel is now part of Clery’s department store, O’Connell Street.
* The Metropole hotel is now Penney’s store in O’Connell Street.
* Hopkins jewellers was until recently a building society at the corner of O’Connell Street and Eden Quay.
* Great Brunswick Street is now Pearse Street.
* The South Dublin Union is now St James’s Hospital.
* Jervis St Hospital is now the Jervis centre in Mary Street.
* Mercer’s Hospital was between Grafton Street and South Great George’s
Street, close to the Stephen’s Green Centre.
* Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital was on Lower Grand Canal Street.
* Boland’s Mill was at Ringsend Road, close to Grand Canal Dock.
* Jacob’s biscuit factory, Bishop Street, was where DIT and the National Archives are now.
* Linenhall barracks were on Constitution hill, near North King Street.
* Richmond barracks were in Inchicore. St Michael’s CBS occupies part of the site.
* Royal Barracks, later known as Collins Barracks, is now part of the National Museum of Ireland.
* The Royal Military Hospital was at Arbour Hill.
* Ship Street Barracks adjoined Dublin Castle.
* Military Headquarters were in Infirmary Road, within the Phoenix Park.
* Wellington Barracks, later Griffith barracks, now houses Griffith College.
* Harcourt Street station was the large building beside the Harcourt Luas stop.
* Westland Row station is now Pearse Station.
