The Proclamation of the Irish Republic

Authors: The Proclamation was written by 7 men: Thomas J. Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada,Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett.  Thomas Clarke, the most influential of the 7, was a extreme revolutionary, borderline terrorist.

Context:  Written in 1916, in the middle of World War I, the Irish rose up in the Easter Rising.  In which, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a devout faction to Irish Independence.

Language:  The document uses simple diction, as it was to be read to the masses.  It also has a militaristic tone, due to the fact that the uprising was violent.

Audience:  This was written to the people of Ireland as a persuasive piece to join their cause for an independent Ireland, separate from the United Kingdom.

Intent: The Proclamation of the Irish Republic was written in order to evoke nationalism within the populous, and to encourage others to rise up with the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Message:  The Proclamation established a number of new orders that are to be brought out once the nation is independent including universal suffrage, equal rights to men and women, and that the government is to be a republic.

One thought on “The Proclamation of the Irish Republic

  1. I agree that the proclamation established new orders and most fascinating, is that the proclamation, in the first few words, introduced equality of men and woman. The bold statement that men and women are equal in Ireland was very progressive at this time in light of the active woman’s suffrage movement in Britain.

Comments are closed.