A Ceremony to mark the 109th Anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising will take place outside the General Post Office (GPO), on O'Connell Street in Dublin this Easter Sunday, April 20.
The ceremony will commence at 12 noon on Sunday, the Department of the Taoiseach has confirmed.
The Ceremony will be led by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, and Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Simon Harris.
Defence Forces’ Personnel, including a brass band, a pipe band and representatives of the Army, the Air Corps, and the Naval Service, will take part in the Ceremony, which will conclude with an Air Corps fly past, weather permitting.
At noon, the National Flag on the GPO will be lowered, and the 1916 Proclamation will be read by an Officer from the Defence Forces.
The President will then lay a wreath to commemorate those who died in the 1916 Rising. A minute’s silence will be observed.
Members of the public are invited to attend the Ceremony and should be in position in the public viewing areas outside the GPO by 11:30 am. Viewing areas are located at the Clery’s side of O’Connell Street and at the south end of the GPO. An area has been reserved for wheelchair users. Large video screens will also be erected on either side of the GPO to display the Ceremony to the public. A Commemorative Programme will be distributed on the day.
The Department noted on Thursday that there will be a traffic management plan in place.
What is the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic?
According to the National Museum of Ireland, the 'Proclamation of the Republic' was a formal assertion of the Irish Republic as a sovereign, independent state, and also a declaration of rights.
It was read by Patrick Pearse in front of the GPO in Dublin at 12:45 pm on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, heralding the Easter Rising, and Ireland's advance towards self-determination.
The seven signatories - Thomas J. Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Patrick H. Pearse, James Connolly, Thomas MacDonagh, Éamonn Ceannt, and Joseph Plunkett - would all be among those court-martialled and executed after the failure of the Rising.
The document was printed in considerable haste in Liberty Hall on Easter Sunday and the morning of Easter Monday by printer Christopher Brady and compositors, Michael Molloy and Liam Ó Briain. As they were short of type, the document had to be printed in two halves, since the first half was broken up in order to provide type for the second half.
109 years ago this weekend, the reading of the Easter Proclamation at Dublin’s GPO marked the start of the 1916 Rising. Visit the @NatPrintMuseum, Beggars Bush Dublin 4 and see a working example of the press on which the original proclamation was printed.
📷 Mark Henderson pic.twitter.com/fF06b82p5v
— Tourism-Culture-Arts-Gaeltacht-Sport-Media (@DeptCultureIRL) April 17, 2025
Also owing to the age and dilapidation of the printing press, individual copies show idiosyncrasies in terms of ink pressure and spacing.
It is unclear how many copies of the Proclamation were printed, but a figure of 2,500 has been suggested. On Easter Monday 1916, between 12 noon and 1 pm, the printed copies were sent to General Headquarters in the GPO and from there distributed to different areas.
What does the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic say?
POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN : In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government,
THOMAS J. CLARKE
SEAN Mac DIARMADA
THOMAS MacDONAGH
P. H. PEARSE
EAMONN CEANNT
JAMES CONNOLLY
JOSEPH PLUNKETT
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