Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by viewing the Proclamation

National Print Museum Calls for 1916 Exhibition Material

Pic: National Print Museum

A significant event in the Rising was Patrick Pearse reading aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside the GPO on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. It is a symbol which proclaims independence, justifies rebellion and offers a vision of Ireland where freedom and opportunity are the rights of all citizens.

The National Print Museum is honored to allow the public an opportunity to see first hand an original copy of this historic document. Of the thousand copies that were originally printed, only 30 are known today.

To commemorate this event, retired printers and volunteers at the National Print Museum, Alfred McCormack, Frederick Snowe and William Ryan have now printed a series of replicas. They will be printed in the traditional craft of letterpress on the Museum’s Wharfdale Stop Cylinder Press, the same type of machine on which the original document was printed.

These copies will be available from the Museum shop for €20 from Monday 21 March. This will also be the day on which one can book a limited edition version on a mould-made paper, which will be made available on April 23, the hundreth anniversary of the reading.

In the coming weeks, visitors of the Museum can learn a lot more about the printing of the Proclamation and special visits can be arranged for primary school students. Being Ireland’s most celebrated holiday, today is an excellent opportunity to honor this artefact that has inspired Irish people all over the world and been essential in the formation of the Ireland we know today.

by Kevin Carney