Video: RTE News: 5th / 04 / 2026
POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
This is what my father and countless brave Irishmen and Irishwomen fought to defend — our Irish people and our sovereign Irish nation
“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.”
“How can Irish politicians, conscious of the damage they have inflicted on our country, attend the Easter Rising Commemorations and listen to the reading of the Proclamation without recognising that they themselves have dishonoured the memory of the families who fought for Ireland’s freedom? Are they not now the ones guilty of cowardice, inhumanity, and rapine?”
Full Text of the 1916 Proclamation (for reference)
POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
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 indefensible. 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 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 of all 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 by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:
THOMAS J. CLARKE
SEAN Mac DIARMADA
P. H. PEARSE
JAMES CONNOLLY
THOMAS MacDONAGH
EAMONN CEANNT
JOSEPH PLUNKETT
Ireland remains a fully sovereign nation-state
Ireland remains a fully sovereign nation-state with the ultimate authority to decide its own fate. This includes the ability to leave the European Union. In fact, Ireland has the right to exit the EU entirely under Article 50 TEU.
Protect Media Freedom – European Democracy Shield
1. Legal and Treaty-Based Foundation in the EU
The European Democracy Shield (launched in late 2025 to counter disinformation, foreign manipulation, protect media freedom, elections, and civic space).
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1. Legal and Treaty-Based Foundation in the EU
The EU is explicitly founded on core values including democracy, the rule of law, human rights, freedom, equality, and human dignity (Article 2 TEU). Moreover, these are not optional—they are the constitutional bedrock of the Union.
- The EU and its member states have both the right and the obligation to defend these values against threats. These threats may be internal (e.g., democratic backsliding in a member state) or external (e.g., foreign interference, disinformation, hybrid threats).
- Tools include:
- Article 7 TEU (the “nuclear option” for serious, persistent breaches of values, potentially suspending voting rights).
- Rule of Law Conditionality (withholding EU funds if breaches affect the EU budget).
- The European Democracy Shield (launched in late 2025 to counter disinformation, foreign manipulation, protect media freedom, elections, and civic space).
- Legislative acts like the Digital Services Act, Political Advertising Regulation, and European Media Freedom Act to safeguard democratic processes from threats like disinformation.
- The EU positions itself as having not just a right but a duty to act. Defending these values protects mutual trust among member states, the single market, citizen rights across borders, and the Union’s legitimacy and survival.
Official EU discourse frames this as essential for the bloc’s “resilience” in a world of rising authoritarianism, geopolitical rivalry, and hybrid warfare. In addition, leaders emphasize that failing to protect democracy internally would undermine the EU’s ability to promote it globally.
“Failing to protect democracy internally would undermine the EU’s ability to promote it globally.”
In conclusion: the structure of the EU is in fact as far as I can make out not Democratically elected. So how have we reached a point of even talking about democracy when the internal structure of the EU itself is not democratic? Practice what you preach?
How do we deal with that in our Country within this very confusing EU structure.