2009 Republican Calendar
In the last few weeks of each year, the Republican Movement issues a calendar for the new year: this year is no exception.
The 2009 Republican Calendar features a series of hard-to-get and/or seldom seen Republican prints and, judging by sales so far, looks set to become a collectors item. Priced at €5 each, these calendars are available from the local Cumann or paper-seller in your area or by contacting Sinn Féin Poblachtach in Dublin (223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1, fón 01 872 9747) or the Belfast Office (229 Falls Road , fón 90 31 9004) or email rsfcork @eircom.net : so keep up-to-date with the Republican Movement and stay 12 months ahead of the 'establishment' - order your 2009 Calendar today!
SINN FÉIN Poblachtach
SINN FÉIN Poblachtach (Republican SINN FÉIN), the last remaining true Republican political party founded in 1905. Reformed in 1986 out of the walkout of the 86 Ard-Fheis by the true Republican leadership, who saw the failure of the new Provisional leaderships's decision to enter into a partitonist assembly of the 26 County Southern Free State. This one day would lead to a larger erosion of Republican principles, to the acceptance of entering a new Stormont and acceptance of British Partition. Republican Sinn Fein uphold the right of the Irish people to oppose continued British occupation in Ireland. We are dealing with state sponsored censorship and are continually demonized in the media, with harassment of our members carried out by the States "Political Police" on both sides of the British imposed Border.
Republicans today are labeled as anti-peace or portrayed militarists. Anyone who becomes arrested for political offenses is now either purposely ignored, demonized in the media, or criminalized. In the north the British have brought back the denial of Political Status. In 1981 Bobby Sands and nine other republican POWs died in the cell blocks of Long Kesh on hunger strike to win Political Status for all Republican POWs.
In Short the present climate is one in which the Republican Movement finds itself struggling against enormous odds, but like all other times of seeming defeat, retreat, or disillusionment, this too shall pass, for its only noble and righteous ideas which live on. As it has been said, You can Kill - or as today's lessons have taught us, even buy-out the revolutionary, but you cannot kill the Revolution.
Therefore this movement will have to be one built upon a strong and solidly principled foundation, built with planning, organization, and structure with a clear purpose and direction to achieve the end goal of a New Ireland ( Éire Nua ) free of British rule.
Republican Sinn Féin believes that the historic Irish nation is a distinct, coherent unit and is entitled to exercise its own independence. Because of the history of our own country we identify with national liberation struggles around the world.
We believe, in the words of one of the 18th Century founders of Irish Republicanism, Wolfe Tone, in the urgent need to "break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils". We stand for the complete overthrow of British rule in Ireland and the establishment of a Federal Democratic Socialist Republic based on the Proclamation of 1916.
To bring the Proclamation of the Republic, declared in Easter 1916 into effective operation and to maintain and consolidate the Government of the Republic, representative of the people of all Ireland, based on that Proclamation.
To establish in the Republic a reign of social justice based on Irish Republican socialist principles in accordance with the Proclamation of the Republic of 1916, the Democratic Program of the First Dial Éireann in 1919, by a just distributation of the nation's wealth and resources and to institute a system of government suited to the particular needs of the people.
To establish the Irish langauge as the primary means of communication in the Republic. To teach Irish History in such a way as will foster a pride in our own cultural heritage, and a sense of rights and responsibilities in our people as citizens of the Republic.
The signing of the 1916 Proclomation.
POBLACHT NA H-ÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Irish Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish Nation must, by its valour and discipline and the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Tomás Ó Cléirigh
Seán Mac Diarmada Tomás Mac Donncha
Pádraig Mac Piarais Seosamh Pluincéad
Séamas Ó Conghaile Eamonn Ceannt
