Editing Robert Emmet (section)

=== Proclamation of the Provisional Government ===
Emmet issued a [[proclamation]] in the name of the "Provisional Government". Calling upon the Irish people "to show the world that you are competent to take your place among the nations . . . as an independent country", Emmet made clear in the proclamation that they would have to do so "without foreign assistance":  "That confidence which was once lost by trusting to external support . . . has been again restored. We have been mutually pledged to each other to look only to our own strength".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Robert Emmet, the 1803 Proclamation of Independence and the ghost of 1798 – The Irish Story|url=https://www.theirishstory.com/2014/02/27/robert-emmet-the-1803-proclamation-of-independence-and-the-ghost-of-1798/#.YMNptjZKjVo|access-date=2021-06-11|language=en-GB|archive-date=11 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210611143813/https://www.theirishstory.com/2014/02/27/robert-emmet-the-1803-proclamation-of-independence-and-the-ghost-of-1798/#.YMNptjZKjVo|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Proclamation also contained "allusions to the widening of the political agenda of Emmet and the United Irishmen following the failure of 1798".<ref name=":0" /> In addition to democratic parliamentary reform, the Proclamation announced that tithes were to be abolished and the land of the established [[Church of Ireland]] nationalised. This, it has been suggested, marked the influence upon Emmet of [[Thomas Russell (rebel)|Thomas Russell]], although as a radical campaigner for economic and social reform, Russell might have wished to go further.<ref>Quinn, James (2007), "Revelation and Romanticism", in Dolan et al (eds.), ''Reinterpreting Emmet: Essays on the Life and Legacy of Robert Emmet'', University College Dublin Press, ISBN 978-1904558637, p. 27</ref> Emmet remained intent on giving the rising a universal appeal across both class and sectarian divisions: "We are not against property – we war against no religious sect – we war not against past opinions or prejudices – we war against English dominion."<ref name=":0" />

The Government sought to suppress all 10,000 printed copies of the Proclamation. Only two are known to survive.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news|last=Whelan|first=Kevin|date=6 September 2003|title=A poltergeist in politics|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/a-poltergeist-in-politics-1.373901|access-date=2021-06-13|newspaper=The Irish Times|language=en}}</ref>