International Republican Socialist Network
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    • Statements 2013>
      • Scottish Independence: The View from America
      • IRSN Arbroath Commemoration Statement
      • IRSN to Commemorate 100th Anniversary of the Irish Citizen Army
      • IRSN Solidarity Statement to Annual SRSM Glencoe Rally
      • Remembered Always With Honour and Pride: Gino Gallagher
      • Twenty-Six Years Since the Death of Ta Power
      • International Republican Socialism – 2013
    • Statements 2012>
      • Remembering Seamus Costello
      • Remembering John MacLean
      • African Liberation Day 2012
      • Occupy St. Patrick's Day!
    • Statements 2011>
      • Solidarity to our Sisters and Brothers in Kenya on African Liberation Day
      • IRSN Solidarity Statement to the May 8th John MacLean Rally
      • Defend Libya as it Confronts the Plots of the Imperialists
      • San Francisco St. Patrick's Day 2011 Parade Anti-Imperialist Contingent
      • Solidarity with the Working People of North African and the Arab Nation
      • IRSN Statement to the SRSM Ard Fheis
      • Commemoration of Scottish Revolutionary John MacLean
    • statements 2010>
      • On the Passing of Peace and Freedom Party activist Tom Conduit
      • Ireland and the British Left
      • San Francisco St. Patrtick's Day Parade Presence
      • Annual Book Drive for Republican Socialist Prisoners of War
      • AAWRU 30th Anniversary
      • IRSN 2010 Holiday Book Drive Success
      • IRSN Holiday Greetings
    • statements 2009>
      • Burns Night & Republican Socialist Convention Report
      • Burns Night Statement 2009
      • St. Patrick's Day Parade in San Francisco
      • Reflections on the Current Economic Crisis
      • May Day Statement
      • Whither the Irish National Liberation Army?
      • African Liberation Day Solidarity
      • Free The Cork 5
      • McIlroy for Congress
      • YOUTUBE: Candidate Mary McIlroy of the IRSN
      • Solidarity with the Libyan Revolution
      • Sponsor an IRSPoW
      • Solidarity Message for the Commemoration of the Century Anniversary
      • Solidarity with the Puerto Rican Struggle for National Liberation and Socialism
      • Update: IRSN Comrade on Peace & Freedom Ticket
      • IRSN Anti-War Action
      • IRSM Gives Up Armed Struggle
      • May Charles Made Her Transition to join the Ancestors
      • IRSN MacLean Commemoration Statement
    • statements 2008>
      • Burn’s Night Social
      • George Habash Remembered
      • Reform or Revolution? The Answer Remains Unchanged.
      • Preparing for the Iron Heel
      • Final Salute to Brendan Hughes and a Republican Socialist Martyr Remembered
      • Irish Republican Socialist Arrests
      • Statement in Support of the Interned IRSM Members
      • Cork Five RSPOWs Defended in San Francisco St. Patrick's Day Parade
      • Pacific Northwest Actions
      • THEY AREN’T “OURS,” BUT BRING THEM HOME ANYWAY
      • May Day 2008
      • IRSN Join March Demanding Open Borders in May Day Demonstrations
      • IRSN Comrade Guest Speaker at Sacramento Community College
      • IRSN Recognized for Linen Hall Library Support
      • IRSN Message to African Liberation Day Celebration in London
      • Christopher 'Crip" McWilliams Near Death
      • Reflections Without Borders - Who We Are
      • HOUSING IS RIGHT
      • Demanding Choices, Not Options
      • Release of Breton Comrades Hailed
      • Solidarity Message for Annual MacLean Rally
      • Salute Thirty-four Years of Republican Socialist Struggle
      • Long Live the PFLP After 41 Years of Struggle
      • Arrests of Alledged INLA Mambers
      • Fallen Martyrs of Irish Republican Socialist Struggle Honoured
  • Documents
    • I have come to preach revolution
    • The Ta Power Document Scandal
    • Remembering the Founding of the IRSCNA
    • Revolutionary Political Action
    • Lessons from 40 Years of War
    • PEADAR O’DONNELL: IRELAND’S NEGLECTED REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST
    • Armed Struggle and the Fight for a Scottish Workers’ Republic
    • 2008 CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM
    • 30 YEARS WITHOUT SEAMUS COSTELLO
  • Formation of IRSN
    • Creation of the International Republican Socialist Network
    • A Tradition Winds Towards It's End
    • What Happened and Where Do We Go From Here
    • Wither the IRSCNA? Wither the IRSP?
    • New Group Formed From Split in the Irish Republican Socialist Movement
    • The Way Forward
  • Workers Republic
    • EDITORIAL2
    • The Republican Socialist Tradition and the Pursuit of Armed Struggle
    • Reclaiming Marxism for the Working Class, Historical Materialism
    • Drugs and the Revolutionary
    • Revolutionary Political Education in a time of ‘Peace’:
    • New Quebecois Left Party
    • Editorial 1
    • CYMRU: republican socialist re-groupment in wales
    • MANNIN: A Look Back On Manx Republican Socialism
    • BREIZH: Emgann Leads Breton Republican Socialist Struggle
    • ALBA: The RCN, Crown Powers and an Anti-Imperialist Agenda
    • ALBA: RCN Statement on the Split in the Scottish Socialist Party
    • PUERTO RICO: Socialism & the National Vindication of Puerto Rico
    • IRELAND: Irish republican socialism stumbles on its way
    • CATALUNYA: A rich revolutionary heritage
    • EUZKADI HERRIA: New Hope Found Amidst Recent Errors
    • News in Brief
  • Connolly Forum
    • Introduction - CF Issue 1
    • Connolly: A Biography
    • James Connolly and the IWW
    • James Connolly and Working Class Culture
    • JC: To Irish Wage Workers
    • JC: Old Wine In New Bottles
    • JC: We Only Want the Earth
    • James Connollys Contribution to International Socialism
    • Editorial CF 2
    • JC: Physical Force in Irish Politics
    • James Connolly: An Appreciation
    • JC: What Is A Free Nation?
    • Connolly’s Strategy for the Easter Rising: Should the Irish Working Class Have Stood Alone?
    • JC: What Is Our Programme?
    • The Irish Citizen Army After 1916
    • JC: We Will Rise Again
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We Will Rise Again

James Connolly, Workers’ Republic, 25 March 1916


The celebrations of the past week in Ireland are a welcome reminder of the indestructible nature of the spirit of freedom. Who would have thought in August, 1914, that in March, 1916, the principle of a distinct and separate existence for Irish Nationality would evoke such splendid manifestations of popular support and popular approval. In August, 1914, it seemed to many of the most hopeful of us that Ireland had at length taken its final plunge into the abyss of Imperialism, and bade a long farewell to all hopes of a separate unfettered existence as a nation.

Plans carefully laid for years before had been suddenly and relentlessly put in operation. A party of Parliamentary representatives elected to obtain Home Rule from England, and without any mandate expressing hostility to any other people, suddenly claimed the power and right to pledge the manhood of Ireland to battle with a friendly nation – a nation whose last public act towards Ireland had been

an attempt to open the port of Queenstown when shut by English intrigue. The same Parliamentary Party publicly renounced all hope and desire that this country should ever attain the status of nationhood, and expressly limited the ambitions of Ireland to such freedoms as the British Government would judge to be not incompatible with the British Empire. Having so limited the claims and renounced the hopes of Ireland this Parliamentary Party consummated its treason by calling upon their fellow countrymen to go out to die, in order to win for Belgium those national rights and powers they had just renounced the right to claim for Ireland.

The public press, the vaunted guardians of public liberty, sold themselves in a body to the Government that had publicly pledged itself not to interfere with an Orange-cum-militarist conspiracy against the liberties of Ireland, and immediately became the foulest slanderers and vilifiers of all who stood by the national cause they had deserted.

The few papers that refused to be bullied, or to be bought, were ruthlessly suppressed by military force. All over Ireland the public representatives whom a lifetime of political intrigue, vote-hunting and job-hunting had debased and demoralised, yielded at the first onset of the new Irish Imperialism, and joyfully, eagerly, exultantly sold their country and their country’s cause.

August, 1914, and the months immediately succeeding it, were months of darkness and of national tribulation. If the darkest hour is that before the dawn, then the dawn should not be far off, for surely no darker hour could come for Ireland than that we passed through in the beginning of this English war upon Germany. But slowly, gradually, but persistently, the forces standing for the social and national freedom of Ireland won the people back to greater sanity and clearer visions. Despite imprisonment, despite persecution, despite suppression of newspapers, despite avalanches of carefully framed lies, the truth made headway throughout the country. The people saw clearer and clearer that nothing had been changed in Ireland, that Ireland was still denied every prerogative that makes for true nationhood, that her interests were still subject to the interests of a rival country, that the Home Rule Act expressly declared for the subjection of Ireland as a permanent condition, that the Redmond-Devlin party had sold the birthright of their country in return for the valueless promise of a Government that did not even keep faith with its own countrymen or women, that the British Empire and the freedom or prosperity of the Irish people were two things that could not exist together in Ireland, and that therefore one or the other must forever and utterly perish.

All through Ireland last week the manhood and womanhood of the nation have gladly, enthusiastically proclaimed their realisation of those truths. This 17th of March will be forever memorable for that reason. The magnificent parades of Volunteers under arms, the overflowing meetings, the joyous abandon of the Irish gatherings of all descriptions, and above all the exultant rebel note everywhere manifest, all, all were signs that the cause of freedom is again in the ascendant in Ireland.

The Cause is not lost, this 17th of March has assured us that despite all the treasons of all the traitors Ireland still remains as pure in heart as ever, and though Empires fall and tyrannies perish.

We Will Rise Again.

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