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The Proclamation of the Irish Republic: Rory O'Connor's copy (executed 1922)
Poblacht na hEireann: 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 .. '
An original copy of the Proclamation of Independence, printed at Liberty Hall in the afternoon and evening of Easter Sunday 1916, and read on the steps of the General Post Office by P.H. Pearse on Easter Monday to mark the start of the Rising.
Printed on poorish quality paper, somewhat browned as usual. Dimensions of paper approx. 29 ¾ x 19 ¾ ins, probably very slightly trimmed at top and left margin (the paper is usually 30 x 20 ins). Length of printed line 18 ¼ inches, precisely as found by Bouch in his bibliographical study, height of printed surface just under 29 inches (within the tolerance established by Bouch). With the typographical peculiarities found by Bouch in vouched original copies, and without those which identify later printings; undoubtedly an original copy of the Easter 1916 printing.
This copy formerly the property of Rory O'Connor, a member of the GPO garrison of 1916 and the Four Courts garrison of 1922, held in his family by unbroken descent since his execution by order of the Free State Government on 8 December 1922 with his comrades Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey, held in custody since their surrender with the Four Courts garrison in late June.
The 1916 Proclamation remains a rare document. No more than 40-50 original copies are known, of which most are now in institutional collections. We are aware of only two other copies with a provenance linking them reliably to persons who were in the GPO garrison during the Rising. Members of the garrison had no facilities to preserve or conceal so large and vulnerable a document, and when the Rising ended most of the participants were taken directly to prison and thence to English jails, where many of them remained for a year or more. Nevertheless, a very few did succeed in retaining or acquiring copies, of which this is one.
Rory O'Connor was born in Dublin in 1883 and educated at University College Dublin, where he qualified as an engineer. Between 1911 and 1915 he worked in Canada as a railway engineer, then returned to Ireland at the request of the IRB and became an engineer with Dublin Corporation. During the Easter Rising he fought in the GPO and was wounded; afterwards he was interned in England. On his release he remained an active Volunteer; in 1917 he sat on a committee with Arthur Griffith which determined the future aims of the independence movement, and successfully urged a full Republican programme. He was IRA Director of Engineering during the War of Independence, working closely with Michael Collins. In 1921, during the Truce, he was best man at the wedding of Kevin O'Higgins - an ironic conjunction in view of later events.
In spite of these friendships he rejected the Treaty with England, and became Chairman of an anti-Treaty Military Council in January 1922. The IRA separated into pro- and anti-Treaty factions, but most of its leaders were reluctant to provoke an open conflict. Early in March, when Ernie O'Malley sought authorisation to attack Free State forces in Limerick, O'Connor declined to approve an attack. A few weeks later the Provisional Government cancelled plans for an IRA Convention, fearing an anti-Treaty majority. The Military Council held the banned Convention anyway, and Rory O'Connor told pressmen they no longer accepted the authority of Dail Eireann. Liam Lynch became Chief of Staff, with O'Connor as QMG.
On April 13 the new Army Council decided to establish a Republican military HQ in Dublin. Rory O'Connor was ordered to take over the Four Courts building with a garrison from the Dublin Brigade, and did so without opposition. For the next two months Lynch and O'Connor showed no further inclination to challenge the Provisional Government in open conflict, and there were continuing efforts to find a basis on which the breach could be healed.
But there were dangerous confrontations in other places, and in late June the situation came to a head, with the detention by Republicans of the Free State General 'Ginger' O'Connell and the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson in London. In the early hours of June 28th, O'Connor received an ultimatum from a Free State officer to surrender within 20 minutes or face artillery assault. O'Connor decided to defend his position. The well-known series of 'Stop Press' posters chronicles the garrison's resistance, but within days the buildings were set ablaze by heavy guns borrowed from the British, and a gigantic explosion destroyed centuries of public records. On Friday 30 June O'Connor ordered his men to dump their arms and march out under a flag of truce. A few men slipped away, but the majority were taken into custody and held in jail while the Civil War unfolded across the country.
An ominous series of events sharpened and embittered the conflict, beginning in August with the deaths of Griffith and Collins, one by natural causes brought on by intense strain, the other in a roadside skirmish. Their surviving colleagues introduced a Bill in late September providing for military courts with powers of summary execution of those taken in arms. Characterising this measure as a 'Murder Bill', Republicans issued a death-list of those who voted for it, to be shot on sight. On 7 December two Government TDs were shot while walking to the Dail. Sean Hales, brother of an anti-Treaty commander, was shot dead; Padraic O Maille, deputy speaker of the Dail, was wounded.
Interpreting this as an attack on democracy itself, the Government put aside all legal restraint. By unanimous decision of the Cabinet, four prominent Republicans in Free State custody, one from each province, were woken in their prison cells and told they would be shot at dawn. There was no legal process and no credible legal justification, unless it be that necessity knows no law. All four had been in custody since their surrender, long before passage of the Bill authorising summary trial and execution. They were given no right of hearing or appeal, no opportunity to conform or recant, just the services of a priest and a few hours to write their farewell letters. The four were Rory O'Connor from Dublin, Liam Mellows from Galway, Dick Barrett from Cork and Joe McKelvey from Donegal. The order was signed by the Minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins, who had asked O'Connor only a year previously to stand with him as his best man.
A little over six years after he gave his allegiance to the Proclamation here offered for sale, a little short of his fortieth birthday, Rory O'Connor was shot dead by a firing squad at the order of former comrades who had pledged the same allegiance. The shootings achieved their purpose - for the time being there were no further attacks on TDs going about their business - but at a cost, marking the reputation and authority of the Free State and its government with a deep stain, which the years have not yet entirely washed away.
Rory O'Connor lost his life through his fidelity to the principles of the 1916 Proclamation as he understood them. We are privileged now to offer his personal copy of this historic document.
Provenance: Family of Rory O'Connor, by unbroken descent. |
Sold for €220000
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| Independence
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| James Adam Salerooms |
| 28 April 2009 |
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