The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (29 page)

Section 2. His Majesty may by Order in Council extend this Act to Ireland, and this Act if so extended shall, subject to such modifications and adaptations as made by the Order for the purpose of making it applicable to Ireland, have effect accordingly.

*
Residents of the dominions; members of the regular or reserve forces; members of the Navy, Royal Marines or Air Force; disabled men; men in holy orders or ministers of religion.

Source: Statutes
(1918), pp. 7–12.

Document 9 IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS OPPOSE CONSCRIPTION

This unanimous statement was issued on behalf of the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy on 9 April 1918, a week before the Military Service Bill to extend conscription to Ireland was passed.

Statements have recently been appearing in the Press to indicate that the Government intend to include this country in a measure of conscription. Whether there is any foundation for these rumours we know not at the moment. But since the outbreak of hostilities four years ago the War Office has shown such utter lack of real touch with Irish conditions that it is quite possible something may be now proposed which, if attempted, would only crown the disasters which want of knowledge and want of sympathy have already entailed. To enforce conscription here without the consent of the people would be perfectly unwarrantable, and would soon and inevitably end in defeating its own purposes.

Had the Government in any reasonable time given Ireland the benefit of the principles, which are declared to be at stake in the war, by the concession of a full measure of self-government, there would have been no occasion for contemplating forced levies from her now. What between mismanagement and mischief-making this country has already been deplorably upset, and it would be a fatal mistake, surpassing the worst blunders of the past four years, to furnish a telling plea now for desperate courses by an attempt to enforce conscription. With all the responsibility that attaches to our pastoral office we feel bound to warn the Government against entering upon a policy so disastrous to the public interest, and to all order, public and private.

Source: Irish Independent,
10 April 1918.

Document 10 EXTRACTS FROM SINN FÉIN'S MANIFESTO FOR THE 1918 GENERAL ELECTION

The manifesto issued by the Sinn Féin Party for the 1918 general election, outlining the party's intention to abstain from Westminster and establish a breakaway constituent assembly in Ireland.

GENERAL ELECTION. MANIFESTO TO THE IRISH PEOPLE

THE coming General Election is fraught with possibilities for the future of our nation. Ireland is faced with the question whether this generation wills it that she is to march out into the full sunlight of freedom, or is to remain in the shadow of a base imperialism that has brought and ever will bring in its train naught but evil for our race.

Sinn Féin gives Ireland the opportunity of vindicating her honour and pursuing with renewed confidence the path of national salvation by rallying to the flag of the Irish Republic.

Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic

1. By withdrawing the Irish Representation from the British Parliament and by denying the right and opposing the will of the British Government or any other foreign Government to legislate for Ireland.

2. By making use of any and every means available to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise.

3. By the establishment of a constituent assembly comprising persons chosen by the Irish constituencies as the supreme national authority to speak and act in the name of the Irish people, and to develop Ireland's social, political and industrial life, for the welfare of the whole people of Ireland.

4. By appealing to the Peace Conference for the establishment of Ireland as an independent nation …

… I SSUED BY THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF SINN FéIN

Source
: National Library of Ireland, Ms. 25,588(54).

Document 11 THE CONSTITUTION OF DÁIL éIREANN

The constitution governing the legislative and executive functions of the First Dáil, read in Irish only at its inaugural meeting on 19 January 1921.

Article 1

All legislative powers shall be vested in Dáil éireann, composed of Deputies, elected by the Irish people from the existing Irish Parliamentary constituencies.

Article 2

(a) All executive powers shall be vested in the members, for the time being, of the Ministry.

(b) The Ministry shall consist of a President of the Ministry, elected by Dáil éireann, and four Executive Officers, viz:

A Secretary of Finance

A Secretary of Home Affairs

A Secretary of Foreign Affairs

A Secretary of National Defence

Each of whom the President shall nominate and have power to dismiss.

(c) Every member of the Ministry shall be a member of Dáil éirean, and shall at all times be responsible to the Dáil.

(d) At the first meeting of Dáil éireann after their nomination by the President, the names of the Executive Officers shall be separately submitted to Dáil éireann for approval.

(e) The appointment of the President shall date from his election, and the appointment of each Executive Officer from the date of the approval by the Dáil of his nomination.

(f) The Ministry or any member thereof may at any time be removed by vote of the Dáil upon motion for that specific purpose, provided, that at least seven days notice in writing of that motion shall have been given.

Article 3

A Chairman elected annually by the Dáil, and in his absence a Deputy Chairman so elected, shall preside at all meetings of Dáil éireann. Only members of the Dáil shall be eligible for these offices. In case of the absence of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman the Dáil shall fill the vacancies or elect a temporary Chairman.

Article 4

All monies required by the Ministry shall be obtained on vote of the Dáil. The Ministry shall be responsible to the Dáil for all monies so obtained, and shall present properly audited accounts for the expenditure of the same – twice yearly – in the months of May and November. The audit shall be conducted by an Auditor or Auditors appointed by the Dáil. No member of the Dáil shall be eligible for such appointment.

Article 5

This Constitution is provisional and is liable to alteration upon seven days written notice of motion for that specific purpose.

Source
: B. Farrell, ‘A note on the Dáil Constitution, 1919’, in
Irish Jurist
, new series, vol. IV (1969), pp. 135–6.

Document 12 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

One of the four foundation documents of the First Dáil, promulgated at its inaugural sitting on 21 January 1919, invoking Ireland's historic right to independence, recently asserted by the Easter Rising and the 1918 general election.

Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people:

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

And Whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people: And Whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people:

And Whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to insure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to constitute a national polity based upon the people's will with equal right and equal opportunity for every citizen:

And Whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in the General Election of December, 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic:

Now, therefore, 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:

We ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give its allegiance:

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:

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:

In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of a ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask His divine blessing
on this the last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to Freedom.

Source
: Documents on Irish Foreign Policy Project,
http://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume1/1919/1.htm

Document 13 THE MESSAGE TO THE FREE NATIONS OF THE WORLD

Document promulgated by the First Dáil on 21 January 1919, calling for international support of Irish independence and recognition of it by the Paris Peace Conference.

To the Nations of the World!

Greeting.

The Nation of Ireland having proclaimed her national independence, calls through her elected representatives in Parliament assembled in the Irish Capital on January 21st, 1919, upon every free nation to support the Irish Republic by recognising Ireland's national status and her right to its vindication at the Peace Congress.

Nationally, the race, the language, the customs and traditions of Ireland are radically distinct from the English. Ireland is one of the most ancient nations in Europe, and she has preserved her national integrity, vigorous and intact, through seven centuries of foreign oppression: she has never relinquished her national rights, and throughout the long era of English usurpation she has in every generation defiantly proclaimed her inalienable right of nationhood down to her last glorious resort to arms in 1916.

Internationally, Ireland is the gateway of the Atlantic. Ireland is the last outpost of Europe towards the West: Ireland is the point upon which great trade routes between East and West converge: her independence is demanded by the Freedom of the Seas: her great harbours must be open to all nations, instead of being the monopoly of England. To-day these harbours are empty and idle solely because English policy is determined to retain Ireland as a barren bulwark for English aggrandisement, and the unique geographical position of this island, far from being a benefit and safeguard to Europe and America, is subjected to the purposes of England's policy of world domination.

Ireland to-day reasserts her historic nationhood the more confidently before the new world emerging from the War, because she believes in freedom and justice as the fundamental principles of international law, because she believes in a frank co-operation between the peoples for equal rights against the vested privileges of ancient tyrannies, because the permanent peace of Europe can never be secured by perpetuating military dominion for the
profit of empire but only by establishing the control of government in every land upon the basis of the free will of a free people, and the existing state of war, between Ireland and England, can never be ended until Ireland is definitely evacuated by the armed forces of England.

For these among other reasons, Ireland – resolutely and irrevocably determined at the dawn of the promised era of self-determination and liberty that she will suffer foreign dominion no longer – calls upon every free nation to uphold her national claim to complete independence as an Irish Republic against the arrogant pretensions of England founded in fraud and sustained only by an overwhelming military occupation, and demands to be confronted publicly with England at the Congress of the Nations, in order that the civilised world having judged between English wrong and Irish right may guarantee to Ireland its permanent support for the maintenance of her national independence.

Source
: Documents on Irish Foreign Policy Project,
http://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume1/1919/2.htm

Document 14 EXCERPTS FROM THE
IRISH BULLETIN

The Irish Bulletin was produced by the Dáil's Department of Publicity and edited by Desmond FitzGerald and later by Erskine Childers. It was the most important organ of republican publicity and propaganda during the revolution.

‘Eighteen Innocent Men Murdered in Twenty-one Days’

By organised murder the English Military Government in Ireland is endeavouring to break the National Movement for independence. It is well to follow step by step this organisation of murder.

After twenty-seven Irish men and women had been done to death by English Agents during the 36 months of 1917–18–19 and the first three months of 1920, in March 1920 a murder gang was created within the English Police Force in Ireland. Its first victim was Alderman Thomas MacCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork. Two others were murdered within the following week. Five were murdered in April; one in May and two up to June 19th. Progress was slow. The police feared public exposure before a Coroner's Court. On June 19th and on following days, an effort was made by their Chief Officials to reassure those timorous police. One of the Divisional Commissioners of the Royal Irish Constabulary informed the men stationed at various barracks in Munster that they might kill without fear. At Listowel, Co. Kerry, on June 19th he said: