April 24th is Republic Day

dublin | miscellaneous | event notice Tuesday April 19, 2011 12:46 by Tom Stokes - Republic Day Citizens' Initiative

Commemorating the actual anniversary of the 1916 Revolution every year

The anniversary of the 1916 Revolution is ignored by the State, unless the date coincides with Easter Sunday. This Citizens' Initiative is aimed at establishing April 24th as Ireland's 'Republic Day'.

Re-proclaim the Republic

Join with other citizens at the GPO to establish the anniversary of the 1916 Revolution and the Proclamation of the Irish Republic as 'Republic Day' from this year forward.

We are free citizens of an independent republic conceived by both the issuing of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and the Revolution of 1916. The anniversary of those events, April 24th, has consistently been sidelined by the Irish State which has abjectly failed to complete the task of building the progressive, modern republic that was promised in the Proclamation. The evidence of this failure lies all around us - one of the most unequal societies in Europe, a shambles of a health system, an education system handed over to the control of religious organisations, the systematic cover up by Church and State of rampant child abuse, business and political corruption and collusion on a huge scale at massive cost to ordinary citizens, the handing over of national assets to private multinational corporations, surrendering national sovereignty to the EU and the IMF, and on, and on.

The French have Bastille Day, the British have Armistice Day, the US has Independence Day. The Irish State has consistently avoided designating the anniversary of the 1916 Revolution and the issuing of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic as a day of remembrance, understanding and celebration of the momentous event... and of the heroic men and women involved in that strike for freedom.

It is time for citizens to reclaim the Republic and to reinvest it with the spirit of paragraph four of the Proclamation. On Sunday April 24th citizens are asked to gather under the Republic Day banner outside Eason's bookshop on O'Connell Street at 10.30 for the duration of the State ceremony (held only because it is Easter Sunday this year!). Following the State ceremony, Republic Day supporters will go to the battlefield site at 16 Moore Street to hold their own commemoration outside the last post of the GPO garrison and leaders prior to surrender. This ceremony will be in conjunction with the Save 16 Moore Street Campaign.

This event is initiated by ordinary citizens, independent of any political party or organisation.

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