Il testo della dichiarazione rilasciata dall’Army Cpuncil di Óglaigh na hÉireann – l’Irish Republican Army
On this the 98th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the Irish Republican Army extends greetings to it’s Volunteers and support network at home and abroad. The Volunteer soldiers of Óglaigh na hÉireann remain committed followers of the ideals expressed in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916, and through their military actions and political activism, strive to achieve a 32 county socialist republic.
We extend our solidarity to our imprisoned comrades and their families, imprisonment at the hands of enemies and collaborators is a time of great hardship. However, the IRA POW’s have been the vanguard of the struggle against British government criminalisation. They continue to inspire the republican base as do their comrades who find themselves imprisoned by a Free State government.
For republicans, Easter is a time when we remember and pay tribute to all those who fought, died and assisted in the fight for Irish Freedom. We do so with dignity and pride, in tribute to the sacrifice of those who refused to accept British rule in Ireland.
As we approach the centenary of the Easter Rising, it is the ideal time to re-energise the Republican struggle.
The IRA has played it’s part in recent years by rebuilding, rearming and refocusing efforts to build a sustainable military campaign. These endeavours are proving successful as recent operations have demonstrated. At the same time Constitutional Nationalists and former Republicans that abandoned the IRA oath and constitution, dine with British royals and implement British rule.
The IRA derives it’s mandate from Britain’s denial of the right of Irish people to national self-determination and sovereignty. Britain does so with the overt support of Stormont and Leinster house.
The IRA remains fully committed to genuine Republican objectives, and where Britain denies the Irish people the right to live free from foreign and undemocratic interference, the IRA will use military force to assert these rights.
A failure to do so and failing to support those building a political Republican alternative to the status quo would be an abandonment of Republican principles.
The leadership and Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army will seek to uphold the cause for which so many fought and died. The IRA continues to build and organise.
Responsibility for further conflict rests with the British government.
Army Council
Irish Republican Army
