Irish Proclamation of Independence

The Proclamation of the Republic (Irish: Forógra na Poblachta), also known as the 1916 Proclamation or Easter Proclamation, was a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and 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, styling itself 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.

Though the Rising failed in military terms, the principles of the Proclamation to varying degrees influenced the thinking of later generations of Irish politicians. The document consisted of a number of assertions:

The proclamation had been printed secretly prior to the Rising on a Summit Wharfedale Stop Cylinder Press, located in Liberty Hall, Eden Quay (HQ of the Irish Citizen Army). Because of its secret printing, problems arose which affected the layout and design. In particular, because of a shortage of type, the document was printed in two halves, printing first the top then the bottom on the same pieces of paper. The typesetters were Willie O'Brien, Michael Molloy and Christopher Brady. They lacked a sufficient supply of type in the same size and font, and as a result the some parts of the document use es from a different font, which are smaller and do not quite match.

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