With the Centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising fast approaching the 32 County Sovereignty Movement welcomes all genuine efforts to both mark and progress the core message of that seminal event. We are also mindful that there will be those who will seek to bury and distort that core message because it does not dovetail into present political positions....
The recent promotional video released by the Dublin Government ranks at the extreme end of the revisionist spectrum. Rightly castigated by their own historical adviser on the project the video nonetheless gave us an insight as to how the political establishment in the Twenty Six Counties State plans to mark the occasion.
More recently it has emerged that a group comprising of relatives of those who participated in 1916, along with artists and academics, has been formed with the stated aim of ‘Reclaiming the Vision of 1916’. At a recent press conference, chaired by artist Robert Ballagh, the group stated that it had ‘drafted a modern version of the Proclamation’. On what basis would it seek to do this? What is wrong with the draft as is written? What agenda requires interfering with the 1916 Proclamation?
These questions are salient because the Proclamation is the bedrock document upon which the insurgents instigated their rebellion in pursuit of its realisation.
Their actions were invoked by the Declaration of Independence in Dáil Eireann, democratically ratified by the Irish people in the 1918 General Election. The Proclamation is also the cornerstone of the legal challenge currently lodged with the United Nations challenging Britain’s continuing violation of Irish sovereignty.
As National Chairperson of the 32CSM it is incumbent upon me to ask of this group; are your efforts to draft a new proclamation an attempt to reconcile the Good Friday Agreement with the existing draft or are they an attempt to diffuse or divert from the basic fact that Partition and the Proclamation cannot be reconciled?
I openly invite Mr Ballagh and any other representatives of this group to meet with me and explain their thinking because given the level of revisionist din that will no doubt surround the Centenary clear voices are essential to honour those of Easter Week with the same clarity by which they spoke to us.
More recently it has emerged that a group comprising of relatives of those who participated in 1916, along with artists and academics, has been formed with the stated aim of ‘Reclaiming the Vision of 1916’. At a recent press conference, chaired by artist Robert Ballagh, the group stated that it had ‘drafted a modern version of the Proclamation’. On what basis would it seek to do this? What is wrong with the draft as is written? What agenda requires interfering with the 1916 Proclamation?
These questions are salient because the Proclamation is the bedrock document upon which the insurgents instigated their rebellion in pursuit of its realisation.
Their actions were invoked by the Declaration of Independence in Dáil Eireann, democratically ratified by the Irish people in the 1918 General Election. The Proclamation is also the cornerstone of the legal challenge currently lodged with the United Nations challenging Britain’s continuing violation of Irish sovereignty.
As National Chairperson of the 32CSM it is incumbent upon me to ask of this group; are your efforts to draft a new proclamation an attempt to reconcile the Good Friday Agreement with the existing draft or are they an attempt to diffuse or divert from the basic fact that Partition and the Proclamation cannot be reconciled?
I openly invite Mr Ballagh and any other representatives of this group to meet with me and explain their thinking because given the level of revisionist din that will no doubt surround the Centenary clear voices are essential to honour those of Easter Week with the same clarity by which they spoke to us.
