Прокламация Ирландской Республики 1916 года

1916 declaration of independence from the United Kingdom
the 1916 proclamation

The Proclamation of the Republic (Forógra na Poblachta), also known as the 1916 Proclamation or the Easter Proclamation, was a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising in Ireland, which began on 24 April 1916. In it, the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, writing as the "Provisional Government of the Irish Republic," proclaimed Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom. The reading of the proclamation by Patrick Pearse outside the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville Street (now called O'Connell Street), Dublin's main thoroughfare, marked the beginning of the Rising. The proclamation was modelled on a similar independence proclamation issued during the 1803 rebellion by Robert Emmet.

The proclamation was printed prior to the Rising on a Summit Wharfedale Stop Cylinder Press in Liberty Hall, Eden Quay (HQ of the Irish Citizen Army). The document had problems with the layout and design because of a shortage of type. It was printed in two halves, printing first the top, then the bottom on one sheet of paper. The paper was sourced from the Swift Brook Paper Mills in Saggart. The typesetters were Willie O'Brien, Michael Molloy, and Christopher Brady. They lacked a sufficient supply of type in typeface of the same size, and as a result, some parts of the document use an e from a different typeface, which are smaller and do not match. The language suggested the original copy of the proclamation was signed by the Rising's leaders. However, no evidence is found nor do any contemporary records mention, the existence of an actually signed copy, although if such a copy existed, it could easily be destroyed in the aftermath of the Rising by someone with no appreciation of its historic importance. Molloy says he set the document from a handwritten copy, with signatures on a separate piece of paper which he destroyed by chewing while in prison, but this was disputed by other participants. Molloy also recalled Connolly asked for the document to resemble an auctioneer's notice in general design. Later reproductions are sometimes mis attributed as originals. After British soldiers recaptured Liberty Hall, they found the press with the type of the bottom of the proclamation, and reportedly ran off some copies as souvenirs, leading to a proliferation of these 'half copies'. not 'President of the Republic'. Historians continue to speculate whether Clarke was to be a symbolic head of state and Pearse as head of government or Pearse was always to be central but with statements ambiguously describing his title. All seven signatories of the proclamation were executed by the British military (James Connolly who had been wounded in the fighting was executed sitting down in a chair) in the aftermath of the Rising, being viewed as having committed treason in wartime (i. e. the First World War). British political leaders regarded the executions initially as unwise, later as a catastrophe, with the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and later prime minister David Lloyd George stating that they regretted allowing the British military to treat the matter as a matter of military law in wartime, rather than insisting that the leaders were treated under civilian criminal law. Though initially deeply unsympathetic to the Rising (the leading Irish nationalist newspaper, the Irish Independent called for their execution), Irish public opinion switched and became more sympathetic due to the manner of their treatment and executions. Eventually Asquith's government ordered a halt to the executions and insisted that those not already executed be dealt with through civilian, not military, law. By that stage, all the signatories and a number of others had been executed.

Full copies of the Easter Proclamation are now treated as a revered Irish national icon, and a copy was sold at auction for €390,000 in December 2004. A copy owned (and later signed as a memento) by Rising participant Seán T. O'Kelly was presented by him to the Irish parliament buildings, Leinster House, during his tenure as President of Ireland. It is currently on permanent display in the main foyer. Other copies are on display in the GPO (headquarters of the Rising and the place where the Proclamation was first read), the National Museum of Ireland, the Trinity College Library's Long Room, the GAA Museum in Croke Park, and other museums worldwide. Facsimile copies are sold as souvenirs in Ireland, and copies of the text are often displayed in Irish schools and in Irish pubs throughout the world. The proclamation is read aloud by an Officer of the Irish Defence Forces outside the GPO during the Easter Rising commemorations on Easter Sunday of each year.