O’Donnell and Ryan, left-wing leaders of the I.R.A. speaking for the Irish Republican Congress, forcefully reject De Valera’s 1937 ‘Republican’ Constitution and instead propose and All-Ireland Ard-Fheis, a Constitutional Convention, to discuss and decide the matter.

‘The Irish People Oppose the New Constitution’ by Peadar O’Donnell and Frank Ryan from Western Worker. Vol. 6 No. 49. June 21, 1937.

(The new draft constitution proposed by the De Valera of Ireland does not by any means signify the end of the long struggle for Irish liberation. The opposition of the Irish people to it is voiced in this declaration of the Irish Republican Congress.)

The Draft Constitution has not caused a single bonfire to be lighted on an Irish hill, nor brought out even one fife and drum band. And yet its authors can be assured of this: that if this Constitution had been a call to the people to re-declare the Republic and set up a National Assembly to organize and govern it, then Ireland would have gone gay. No nation can emerge from servitude into the dignity of a sovereign state without the people coming out of doors to cheer.

The argument, however, is not that the Constitution proclaims the Republic but that it ends the treaty. Men did not die to end the treaty but to defend the Republic, and not merely to defend the Republic, but to undo the Conquest. And anyway the Treaty has been dead since the spring of 1932. Republican Ireland has been waiting the signal to rally once more to the 1916 Proclamation, and to take its stand on the high ground which the Ard-Fheis of 1922 refused to desert even under the threat of war.

Poor Will Oppose It

The poor of Ireland will receive this Constitution with increasing opposition. Within the hearts and minds of the common people of this country the breaking of the connection included the supplanting of the traitor minority who shut them out from land, drove them into exile and impoverished them at home The 1916 Proclamation was always read to promise just such a triumph of the poor over the small group of rich men who trafficked in their misery. This Draft Constitution would, if adopted, sound the death knell of their dreams. For private property is raised here almost to the dignity of a sacrament. It is the price paid for winning the support of the interests, behind such journals as the “Irish Catholic.” Landless men, jobless, underpaid, insecure, harassed breadwinners are guaranteed only their poverty. Tenement dwellers are guaranteed only the smelly overcrowding and the rack renting. The articles on private property, are the holdfasts to which the Irish people are to be shackled so that the people’s enemies may feel secure.

It is in keeping with this betrayal that the whole tradition of the Fenian struggle should be outraged also in the articles on religion. Under the guise of venerating the religion to which the majority of Irish people belong, the government surrender to the political ambitions of the Roman Catholic bishops, Irish history proves that it is the Irish people and not the Irish hierarchy, Protestant or Catholic, who hold steadfast to religion, Irish history establishes that the Irish hierarchy have been the bitterest enemies of the Separatist movement. And it is precisely because they are on the side of the rich minority, whose interests this Constitution would serve, that the Irish bishops seek to entrench themselves politically.

Principle of Equality

Republican Ireland, however, foes not rest its opposition on the passing accident of worthy or unworthy bishops. They take their stand on the principle of equality before the state of all citizens irrespective of religious belief. They are opposed to a state or a semi-state church and will offer any such proposal unbending opposition. They recognize, too, that partition will not be overcome unless the terms Catholics and Protestants are merged in the common name of Irishman and would point out to all democrats that to set up, the Roman Catholic hierarchy in any position of political privilege except what devotion to the independence of the country and to the general democratic struggle may earn them, is to perpetuate partition. And the same goes for the Protestant bishops in the northeast.

The guarantee to women of equal rights and equal opportunities, stated so clearly in the 1016 Proclamation, is not relayed n this Draft Constitution. Republicans demand that it be openly declared in any constitution for the Irish Republic that equal pay and opportunities for women in industry shall be assured.

Is it any wonder then that there is no national rejoicing over this new Constitution? It does not restore the Republic, but on the contrary it attacks the People’s Charter, the 1916 Proclamation.

In these circumstances who can view without uneasiness the approach of a plebiscite before the people have been permitted to take counsel with themselves on its provisions? A discussion in the Free State Parliament is not adequate. Only a nationwide conference of all Republican and democratic opinion is adequate. The Republican Congress appeals, therefore, to all Separatists and labor bodies to take a hand in the re-assembling of the Ard-Fheis of 1921.

The Republican Congress urges on the Fianna Fail Government that they put no barriers on the way of such an Ard-Fheis, but that, on the contrary, they encourage the units of their organization to take part in the work of organizing it. We accuse the Fianna Fail Government of this: that in a day of trial for the nation they, on whom the task of leadership had fallen ask less for the people than the people are eager and able to achieve.

Who will say that if the Irish people were faced with just one question today and asked whether they were ready to re-declare the Republic forthwith that the answer would not be an avalanche for the Republic. Will the Fianna Fail Government then dare drive the people on to a meaner formula? If the leaders of the Fianna Fail movement make any such effort Republican and Labor bodies must see that they have the duty of joining forces to assemble an Ard-Fheis from the 32 counties of Ireland o call a halt to such treason. It is bad enough that the sacrifices of those who gave their all in the independence struggle should be unavailing just because our enemy is strong, but is it not unthinkable that we should mock their sacrifices when it is within our power to realize their dreams without even risk to ourselves?

Republicans, Workers, Democrats, call a halt to this Draft Constitution: Allow the Nation to voice its demands: Organize an All-Ireland Ard-Fheis!

PEDAR O’DONNELL Chairman.
FRANK RYAN Hon, Secretary.

Irish Republican Congress.