Proclamation Day at DCU

DCU marked Proclamation Day on Tuesday 15th March with a special raising of the national flag and a reading of the Proclamation.

Following The Proclamation - What it contained and how it has been translated, an intergenerational exploration of the importance and meaning of the Proclamation, facilitated by Dr Marnie Hay and Dr Mel Farrell of DCU St Patrick’s Campus entitled, the Proclamation was read by DCU student, Alastair Dennehy of DCU’s Drama Society.

Speaking at the commemorative event, Professor John Doyle, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences said:

'The Proclamation represents a remarkable historical document, given the political norms of the period.  Like 1776 for US citizens or Bastille Day for the French, it represents a moment of hope, of ambition, of determination for the yet to be established Irish Republic.  It is one of the earliest such documents to explicitly declare a republic based on the equal citizenship and voting rights of men and women.  In contrast to the deep social conservatives and economic inequality of the late nineteenth and early twenty century British Empire it promises a republic based on "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities of all its citizens".  The enormous public response to the 2016 commemorations, reflects not only a period of remembrance but also a renewed moment of hope to realise the ideals of the 1916 Proclamation.”