The Declaration of Independence (, ) was a document adopted by

Dáil Éireann Dáil Éireann ( ; , ) is the lower house and principal chamber of the Oireachtas, which also includes the president of Ireland and a senate called Seanad Éireann.Article 15.1.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads: "The Oireachtas shall co ...

, the revolutionary parliament of the

Irish Republic The Irish Republic ( or ) was a Revolutionary republic, revolutionary state that Irish Declaration of Independence, declared its independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdict ...

, at its first meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin, on 21 January 1919. It followed from the

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffit ...

election manifesto A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...

of December 1918. Texts of the declaration were adopted in three languages: Irish, English and French.

Scope

The

claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The declaration made no mention of the independence of the 32-county geographic island, just the independence of the "Irish nation" or "Irish people". It was rivalled by the British administration of the

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the K ...

, but as the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...

went on, it increased its legitimacy in the eyes of most Irish people. It was taken over by the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...

in 1922, after the

Anglo-Irish Treaty The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty (), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain an ...

. Under

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

, the declaration satisfied the principle of the " declarative theory of statehood," but in 1919 almost all

states State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

followed the " constitutive theory of statehood" and therefore did not recognise the Irish Republic.

Ratification of 1916 Proclamation

By the Declaration of Independence, the Dáil ratified the earlier

Proclamation of the Irish Republic The Proclamation of the Republic (), also known as the 1916 Proclamation or the Easter Proclamation, was a document issued by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising in Ireland, which began on 24 April 1916. ...

of Easter 1916. This proclamation had not been adopted by an elected body but merely by the Easter rebels claiming to act in the name of the Irish people. Unlike the proclamation, the Declaration of Independence was followed by the establishment of some ''de facto'' political organs. In its crucial line the declaration pronounced that:

English garrison

Differing meanings were given to the occupying 'English garrison'. This was the closest that the Irish Republic came to declaring war on Britain in January 1919, arguing that an invasion had taken place, and therefore any military action from then on was to remove the invaders. The government in London refused to take this as a

declaration of war A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another. The declaration is a performative speech act (or the public signing of a document) by an authorized party of a national gov ...

, considering that it was worded for an Irish audience. When the Irish War of Independence started with some haphazard shootings on the same day at Soloheadbeg,

County Tipperary County Tipperary () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary (tow ...

, it was treated by the British as a police matter. The Dáil had no claim to control the

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various Resistance movement, resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperiali ...

(IRA) until the latter swore an oath of allegiance to it in August 1920.

700 years

This was based on the 'apostolic succession' of revolts against the English and later, British administrations, placing the last fully free Ireland in the Gaelic world of about the 1160s, before the

Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland took place during the late 12th century, when Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land in Ireland over which the List of English monarchs, monarchs of England then claimed sovere ...

of 1168–71. The declaration saw the wars and revolts of 1594–1603, 1641–50, 1689–91, 1798,

1803 Events January–March * January 1 – The first edition of Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière's ''Almanach des gourmands'', the first guide to restaurant cooking, is published in Paris. * January 4 – William Symingt ...

, 1848,

1867 There were only 354 days this year in the newly purchased territory of Alaska. When the territory transferred from the Russian Empire to the United States, the calendric transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar was made with only 1 ...

and 1916 as a continuing attempt at regaining Irish self-government, with or without links to the crown.

Aim of international recognition

An important element in the 1918 Sinn Féin election manifesto was to secure recognition at the forthcoming peace conference that would end the World War of 1914 to 1918. President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...

of the United States had suggested that the Versailles Peace Conference would be inclusive and even-handed, but his "

Fourteen Points The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress ...

" had called for "equal weight" between parties at arbitration in article 5, and not outright declarations of independence. In June 1920, a "Draft Treaty between the new

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

and the Republic of Ireland" was circulated in Dublin. E. H. Carr, the historian of early Bolshevism, considered that "... the negotiations were not taken very seriously on either side."Carr, E. H., ''The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–23, vol. 3'' Penguin Books, London, 4th reprint (1983), pp. 257–258. The draft treaty was published for propaganda purposes in the British document ''Intercourse between Bolshevism and Sinn Féin'' of 1921 ( Cmd 1326). The RSFSR was a pariah state at the time.

References

External links

*Official texts from

Wikisource Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...

: ** Faisnéis Neamhspleádhchuis ** Irish Declaration of Independence (in English) ** :fr:s:Déclaration d’Indépendance (Irlande) {{in lang, fr

Political history of the Republic of Ireland History of Ireland (1801–1923) 1919 in Ireland 1919 documents