The Proclamation of the Irish Republic is the most significant document in Irish history. The credo contained therein, to cherish ‘all of the children of the nation equally’, has come to define its seven signatories, marking a common bond in their life’s work. Their memory intensely moulded by their political activities, history can forget the diverse background from which these seven men came—family histories that touched upon twenty counties and economic environments ranging from extreme poverty to privilege. The Family Histories of the Seven Signatories is an indepensible genealogical history that uncovers the disparate lives that came together through the will for Irish independence. Thomas Clarke and James Connolly were born in England and Scotland respectively, their families having emigrated in the years after the Great Famine, an experience shared by many generations of Irish people before and since. Thomas McDonagh and Patrick Pearse had immediate English forebears. The signatories’ pasts from before they were born were an essential component in determining their ideas – each firmly their own – of an Irish republic. Their extended histories, fully disclosed within the pages of this book, are a riveting realisation of the complexities that defined nineteenth century Ireland and the lives of the seven signatories whose pasts reveal the many-faceted draw towards rebellion.

This book contains excerpts from The Workers' Republic Newspaper, in which Connolly published articles on guerrilla warfare and continuously attacked the group known as The Irish Volunteers for their inactivity.

On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, the tricolour flag was hoisted over the General Post Office. Shortly after noon Padraig Pearse, standing beneath the high portico, read the Proclamation publicly proclaiming Ireland a republic and a sovereign independent state. John O'Connor recounts the birth of this historic document which was to become one of the cornerstones of the new state. Why was it necessary? Who wrote it? Who secretly printed it and where? How was it distributed? How many exist? How would you know an authentic print? 'The Proclamation of the Irish Republic has been adduced in evidence against me as one of the signatories; you think it is already a dead and buried letter, but it lives, it lives. From minds alight with Ireland's vivid intellect it sprang; in hearts aflame with Ireland's mighty love it was conceived. Such documents do not die ... ' FROM THE COURT-MARTIAL SPEECH OF THOMAS MacDONAGH

'We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens'. Seven people signed the Proclamation of the Republic in 1916 - four of them were poets. To commemorate its centenary, Cork City Council has commissioned four of Ireland's leading contemporary writers to reflect on the meaning of this single most important artefact of the 1916 Rising. Did it ever live up to the idealistic aspirations it pronounced? Does it still have a message for us, 100 years after it was written? Read the reflections of four Irish writers on how it resonates today.

In their long struggle for independence from British rule, Irish republicans had long looked west for help, and with reason. The Irish-American population in the United States was larger than the population of Ireland itself, and the bond between the two cultures was visceral. Irish exiles living in America provided financial support-and often much more than that-but also the inspiration of example, proof that a life independent of England was achievable. Yet the moment of crisis-"terrible beauty," as William Butler Yeats put it-came in the armed insurrection during Easter week 1916. Ireland's "exiled children in America" were acknowledged in the Proclamation announcing "the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic," a document which circulated in Dublin on the first day of the Rising. The United States was the only country singled out for offering Ireland help. Yet the moment of the uprising was one of war in Europe, and it was becoming clear that America would join in the alliance with France and Britain against Germany. For many Irish-Americans, the choice of loyalty to American policy or the Home Rule cause was deeply divisive. Based on original archival research, Ireland's Exiled Children brings into bold relief four key figures in the Irish-American connection at this fatal juncture: the unrepentant Fenian radical John Devoy, the driving force among the Irish exiles in America; the American poet and journalist Joyce Kilmer, whose writings on the Rising shaped public opinion and guided public sympathy; President Woodrow Wilson, descended from Ulster Protestants, whose antipathy to Irish independence matched that to British imperialism; and the only leader of the Rising not executed by the British-possibly because of his having been born in America--Éamon de Valera. Each in his way contributed to America's support of and response to the Rising, informing the larger narrative and broadly reflecting reactions to the event and its bitter aftermath. Engaging and absorbing, Schmuhl's book captures through these figures the complexities of American politics, Irish-Americanism, and Anglo-American relations in the war and post-war period, illuminating a key part of the story of the Rising and its hold on the imagination.