The Seven Signatories of the Irish Proclamation by Jim FitzPatrick.
This is not the Ireland they died for!
Jim Fitzpatrick, creator of the iconic 1968 Ché Guevara revolutionary poster has now finished his new series of Irish Revolutionaries!
‘I was compelled to start working on this new Irish Revolutionaries series when I saw how the government was attempting to airbrush the heroes of 1916 from history, not mentioning them in the centenary celebrations.
When you read the proclamation you see how much work is yet to be done and in fact how we are being sold out.
One simple example from the Irish Proclamation: ‘We declare the right of the Irish people to the ownership of Ireland…’.
Think of the huge multi-billion euro Corrib gas field and its handover to Shell, lock, stock and barrel -free of any royalties due to the Irish people -by a corrupt government minister who retired on a vast gold-plated pension while successive Fianna Fail and Fine Gael/Labour governments allowed a police state to be created in Rossport to facility this looting of our natural resources. Now Shell will pocket all the billions of profit and evade all the tax they can. The list goes on and on and…
Even as we celebrate this great centenary of the Easter 1916 Rising there are those, Irish politicians -and their patrons, the developers -who happily erase our history just to get a few more euros in their pockets. The very site of the last hours of the provisional government of 1916 and where the rebels surrendered, the Moore Street battlefield, was due to be demolished but with activists occupying the buildings and now with the recent High Court ruling to preserve them against the governments wishes there is new hope. The list of demolished battlefield buildings is endless too.
Time to take these vandals on, fight back and honour those who fought against such venal and corrupt gangsters.
I really want these iconic portraits of Irish Revolutionaries to remind them that we refuse to forget the sacrifices of so many Irish men and women. I want these portraits to have pride of place in your home. I want YOUR children and grandchildren to see them, to know their names, to remember them and their sacrifice. At a time of such uncertainty these are people who can inspire us.
I want you and your children to stand by the real Republic, the Republic of the Proclamation.
I have done this before. The Ché Guevara image I created in 1968 is seen wherever there is discontent or revolution in part because I deliberately shared it with revolutionary groups around the world. This is why I have created a selection of free digital prints for download. I want these images to be popular, to proliferate.
Our revolutionaries died for our freedom, let’s remember their names’.
The seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation: Thomas J. Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, Padriac Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett.
We Will Remember!
Jim FitzPatrick. Artist. Ireland.