Reclaim The Republic/Athshealbhaígí an Phoblacht

“What The Proclamation Means To Me”

By Gerry Ruddy (Irish Republican Socialist Party)

The 1916 proclamation of the Irish Republic is undoubtedly a powerful and evocative document. Extremely well written it vibrates with emotion and passion. To hear it read out every Easter, especially when well read out (and not mumbled), is a moving experience. For the Proclamation is not only a historical document but a call to action. It is a document based on the best ideals of the French Revolution, liberty, fraternity and equality.

I grew up in a strongly nationalist town in the North and soon learned the nuances between the nationalist, the republican and the labour interpretation of the document. Clearly the document is the result of a consensus between the signatures of the document. Those who wish can put their own interpretation on the document to suit their particular ideological belief. Some have emphasised the appeal to God and the dead generations and turned the Proclamation into a semi mystic document that gives Irish nationalism some kind of purity. Others see it as a fundamental republican call to arms from which there can be no deviation.
As a republican socialist and Marxist I prefer to take from the document a number of what I regard as key features.

1. The assertion of the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland.

   1. This right was never fully asserted and today Irish land, factories, rivers, mountains belong to private companies and individuals who owe no allegiances except to the Gods of profit.

   2. National assets that by right should belong to the nation are being privatised to suit the neo-liberal economic agenda.

   3. It placed the common good over and above the rights of the individual.

2. The guarantee of religious and civil liberties, equal rights and equal opportunities and the inclusiveness of all the people on the island.

   1. Since this declaration there has been a distinct lack of these rights and liberties in the misbegotten northern state. Many of a unionist persuasion still have not yet come to terms with ”equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens”. This is a key issue that Republicans need to address.

   2. For many years the southern state was a catholic confessional state owing allegiances not to the ideals of the proclamation but to a reactionary ideology flowing from Rome. Thankfully the Republican movement always opposed de Valera’s constitution.

   3. Irish society has changed and those who adhere to the Proclamation can only welcome the influx of migrant labour. Irish republicanism has always had an internationalist aspect and the Proclamation is not a vision of a narrow intolerant society but an attempt to break away from a racist imperialist grip and establish a society based on universal human values.

3. The proclamation signalled the beginning of the anti imperialist struggles in the 20th century. The rising inspired subjected colonial peoples around the world to struggle against their imperialist masters. That struggle is far from ended but at least in the 1916 Easter Proclamation oppressed peoples around the world have an outstanding example to follow.