

#Speech of Éamon de Valéra on his election as President of Sinn Féin, October 25th, 1917


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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition


### Background details and bibliographic information


Speech of Éamon de Valéra on his election as President of Sinn Féin, October 25th, 1917
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Author: Éamonn de Valera
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### File Description

Electronic edition compiled by Audrey Murphy

Funded by University College, Cork and  
Professor Marianne McDonald via the CELT Project 2. Second draft.Extent of text: 1484 words#### Publication


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College Cork  
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

 (2005) (2008) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.  
Text ID Number: E900008Availability [RESTRICTED] 
Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for
purposes of academic research and teaching only.


#### Sources


**Dorothy Macardle**, Speech of Eamon de Valéra on his election as President of Sinn Féin, October 25th, 1917 in Dorothy Macardle The Irish Republic: a documented chronicle of the Anglo-Irish conflict and the partitioning of Ireland, with a detailed account of the period 1916-1923. Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, (1937) page 917–918### Encoding


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CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts


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### Profile Description


Created: Éamonn de Valera.
 (25 october 1917) #### Use of language


##### Language: [EN] The whole text is in English apart from the name forms used by the signatories.


##### Language: [GA] The term 'Sinn Féin' is in Irish.


##### Language: [LA] Two words are in Latin.


### Revision History


* (2011-01-23) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* Conversion script run, new wordcount made.
* (2008-07-19) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* Value of div0 "type" attribute modified, minor modifications made to header; keywords added.
* (2005-08-25) Julianne Nyhan (ed.)

* Normalised language codes and edited langUsage for XML conversion
* (2005-08-04T14:41:16+0100) Peter Flynn (ed.)

* Converted to XML
* (2005-02-11) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* Header updated, file reparsed; HTML file created.
* (1997-02-25) Peter Flynn (ed.)

* HTML file generated using OmniMark.
* (1997-02-25) Mavis Cournane (ed.)

* File parsed using SGMLS.
* (1996-11-17) Donnchadh Ó Corráin (ed.)

* Header constructed, structural mark-up added, checked and verified.
* (1996) Audrey Murphy (ed.)

* Text proofed.
* (1996) Audrey Murphy (ed.)

* Text captured by scanning




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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E900008


### Speech of Éamon de Valéra on his election as President of Sinn Féin, October 25th, 1917: Author: Éamonn de Valera




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p.917


It is a pleasure to me that my first duty should be to convey your
thanks and the thanks, in your name, of the people of Ireland to those
leaders who have brought this movement to its present condition, when,
rather than have voting between them, they retired in order that we
might strengthen the new position which we occupy—a position in
which we tell the world that we want no connection with England. The
only particular value in having me here is this. In the contested
election of Clare the people of Clare did me the honour of choosing me
as their representative. I stood then for the policy which is the aim
of the new organisation. That policy was endorsed by the free votes of
the electors of East Clare, and by electing me unanimously here, you,
the people of Ireland, have endorsed the voice of the people of East
Clare, and declared to the world that the policy which we put before
the people of East Clare is the policy of the people of all
Ireland.


The Constitution of this new movement which you have adopted is one
which it may be well to lay stress on. It says that this organisation
of Sinn Féin aims at securing
international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish Republic.
That is what I stand for, what I stood for in East Clare and it is
because I stand for that that I was elected here. I said in East Clare
when I was elected that I regarded that election as a monument to the
dead. I regard my election here as a monument to the brave dead, and I
believe that this is proof that they were right, that what they fought
for—the complete and absolute freedom and separation from
England—was the pious wish of every Irish heart.


They said: ‘We know that is the opinion of the people of Ireland.
We know that in going out to fight the British Empire, small in
numbers though we are, we are asserting to the world that Ireland is a
nation, and that Ireland has never agreed to become a subject nation
or a part of the British Empire’. They said: ‘We know, and the
people of Ireland, that the people of Ireland are kept from expressing
their views simply by the naked sword of England. England pretends it
is not by the naked sword, but by the good will of the people of this
country, that she is here. We will draw the naked sword to make her
bare her own naked sword, to drag the hypocritical mask off her face,
and to show her to the world for what she is, the accursed oppressor
of nations’. These glorious men did what they felt they were quite
justified in doing. They said: ‘What we aim at is the freedom of the
people of Ireland. We are not a mere party here or a small section. We
represent in our hearts the solid, sensible opinion


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p.918



of Irishmen and if we are to win that freedom the first step in that
battle must be to get the people of Ireland themselves determined to
win it; and even though the first battle in that political fight might
be a military defeat it will lead to final success. That has ever
been in my mind their moral justification.’


[*gap: ellipsis*]This Constitution that we are setting up
says we are striving to get international recognition for our Irish
Republic, and there is an added clause to it which I would like to
explain, that, having achieved that status, the Irish people may by
referendum freely choose their own forms of government. This is not
the time for this, for this reason, that the only banner under which
our freedom can be won at the present time is the Republican banner.
It is as an Irish Republic that we have a chance of getting
international recognition. Some of us would wish, having got that
recognition, to have a Republican form of government. Some might have
fault to find with that and prefer other forms of government. This is
not the time for discussion on the best forms of government. But we
are all united on this—that we want complete and absolute
independence. Get that and we will agree to differ afterwards. We do
not wish to bind the people to any form of government. Some of my
friends may have different opinions from mine on forms of
government.


This is not the time for that; this is the time to get freedom.
Then we can settle by the most democratic means what particular form
of government we may have. I only wish to say in reference to the last
clause that there is no contemplation in it of having a Monarchy in
which the Monarch would be of the House of Windsor.


We say it is necessary to be united under the flag under which we
are going to fight for our freedom: the flag of the Irish Republic. We
have nailed that flag to the mast; we shall never lower it. I ask you
all to salute that flag, nailed to the mast, which we shall never
lower—to salute the flag and in Grattan's words to say ‘Esto perpetua’.












