Irish Declaration of Independence

Irish Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence (Irish: Forógra na Saoirse, French: Déclaration d'Indépendance) was a document adopted by Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary parliament of the Irish Republic, at its first meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin, on 21 January 1919. It followed from the Sinn Féin election manifesto of December 1918. Texts of the declaration were adopted in three languages: Irish, English and French.

Contents

Scope

The Irish Republic claimed to encompass the whole island of Ireland. The declaration made no mention of the independence of the 32-county geographic island, just the independence of the 'Irish nation' or 'Irish people'. It was rivaled by the British administration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but as the Irish War of Independence went on it increased its legitimacy in the eyes of Irish people. It was superseded by the Irish Free State in 1922, after the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Under international law the declaration satisfied the principle of the "declarative theory of statehood", but in 1919 almost all states followed the "constitutive theory of statehood", and therefore did not recognise the Irish Republic.

Ratification of 1916 Proclamation

By the Declaration of Independence the Dáil ratified the earlier Easter Proclamation of 1916. This proclamation had not been adopted by an elected body but merely by the Easter rebels claiming to act in the name of the Irish people. Unlike the proclamation, the Declaration of Independence was followed by the establishment of some de facto political organs. In its crucial line the declaration pronounced that:

..we, the elected Representatives of the ancient Irish people in National Parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command

English Garrison

We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison.

Differing meanings were given to the occupying 'English garrison'. This was the closest that the Irish Republic came to declaring war on Britain in January 1919, arguing that an invasion had taken place and therefore any military action from then on was to remove the invaders. The government in London refused to take this as a declaration of war, considering that it was worded for an Irish audience. When the Irish War of Independence started with some haphazard shootings on the same day at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary, it was treated by the British as a police matter. The Dáil had no claim to control the volunteers (IRA) beyond sharing the aim of Irish sovereignty until they had sworn an oath of allegiance to it in August 1920.[1]

700 Years

And Whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation.

This was based on the 'apostolic succession' of revolts against the English and later, British Administrations, placing the last fully free Ireland in the Gaelic world of about the 1160s, before the Norman invasion of Ireland of 1168-71. The declaration saw the wars and revolts of 1594–1603, 1641–50, 1689–91, 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916 as a continuing attempt at gaining Irish self-government, with or without links to the crown.

International recognition

We claim for our national independence the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace hereafter:

An important element in the 1918 Sinn Féin election manifesto was to secure recognition at the forthcoming peace conference that would end World War I. President Woodrow Wilson of the USA had suggested that the Versailles Peace Conference would be inclusive and even-handed, but his "Fourteen Points" had called for "equal weight" between parties at arbitration in article 5, and not outright declarations of independence.

In June 1920 a "Draft Treaty between the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Republic of Ireland" was circulated in Dublin. E. H. Carr, the historian of early Bolshevism, considered that ".. the negotiations were not taken very seriously on either side."[2] The RSFSR was a pariah state at the time.

The Irish policy of declaring independence before the peace conference was unsuccessful, and can be contrasted with the Zionist proposals that were allowed to be laid before the conference in February 1919.

See also

On the same day the First Dáil adopted the:

Notes

  1. ^ C. Younger, Ireland's Civil War (London 1968) p103
  2. ^ Carr, EH The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-23, vol 3 Penguin Books, London, 4th reprint (1983), pp. 257-258. The draft treaty was published for propaganda purposes in the 1921 British document Intercourse between Bolshevism and Sinn Fein (Cmd 1326).

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Declaration of independence — Unilateral declaration of independence redirects here. For the specific Rhodesian document, see Unilateral Declaration of Independence. This article is about the type of document. For the first document to be generally called such, see United… …   Wikipedia

  • Irish War of Independence — Infobox Military Conflict conflict=Irish War of Independence, Interwar Period caption= The No.2 3rd Tipperary Brigade Flying Column during the war date=January 21, 1919 July 11, 1921 (though violence continued until July 1922) place=Ireland casus …   Wikipedia

  • Declaration of Independence (Ireland) — ) was a document adopted by Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary parliament of the self proclaimed Irish Republic, at its first meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin, on 21 January, 1919. It followed from the Sinn Féin election manifesto of December… …   Wikipedia

  • Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence — The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is allegedly the first declaration of independence made in the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. It was supposedly signed on May 20, 1775, at Charlotte, North Carolina, by a committee of …   Wikipedia

  • Timeline of the Irish War of Independence — This is a timeline of the Irish War of Independence (or the Anglo Irish War[1]) of 1919–1921. The Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla conflict and most of the fighting was conducted on a small scale by the standards of conventional warfare …   Wikipedia

  • Chronology of the Irish War of Independence — This is a chronology of Irish War of Independence (or the Anglo Irish War [The war is often referred to as the Irish War of Independence in Ireland and as the Anglo Irish War in Britain, the Tan War by anti Treaty republicans and was known… …   Wikipedia

  • Physical history of the United States Declaration of Independence — The signed, engrossed copy of the Declaration, now badly faded, is on display at the National Archives in Washington, DC. The United States Declaration of Independence, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great… …   Wikipedia

  • Abraham Lincoln: The Dred Scott Decision and the Declaration of Independence — ▪ Primary Source              The Dred Scott decision of March 1857 dealt a severe blow to Republican efforts to prevent the expansion of slavery. As the leading Republican in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln felt bound to oppose Democrats who upheld… …   Universalium

  • Irish Republic — Infobox Former Country native name = Poblacht na hÉireann (Saorstát Éireann) conventional long name = Irish Republic common name = Ireland continent = Europe region = British Isles country = Ireland status = status text = year start = 1919 year… …   Wikipedia

  • Irish Free State — Infobox Former Country native name = Saorstát Éireann conventional long name = Irish Free State common name = Ireland continent = Europe region = British Isles country = Ireland year start = 1922 year end = 1937 date start = 6 December 1922 date… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”