ABSTRACT
Chapter 4, “Poetic Prophecy in Ireland’s 1916 Proclamation of the Republic,” addresses an atypical case of founding speech. Issued in an ill-fated uprising, the Irish Proclamation was framed in poetic language and grounded in the energies of death and sacrifice. Its authority is openly conditional, and it places crucial future work in the hands of its audience. Because it was not issued as the voice of the people, the document exposes the dynamics of founding in particularly stark terms. While it is not easily explained by the performative paradigm modeled on the American Declaration, the Irish document shows that some forms of speech preempt thorny questions around performative completeness or democratic authorship. The Proclamation’s style and form points toward an element in founding speech with aesthetic or poetic qualities. Poetic speech was the hallmark of authority in early Irish Brehon law, and the Proclamation consciously evokes this legacy. The Irish experience suggests the capacity of poetry to take language to its natural limits, and beyond, can prove adaptive at a founding.
