While the centenary commemoration of the 1916 Proclamation was marked on Easter Monday 28th March this year, the actual reading of the 1916 Proclamation was on 24th April 1916, shortly after noon. Today is a day to be celebrated in Ireland.

The Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme commissioned Interesource Group to produce the translated video to ensure that alongside the reading of the 1916 Proclamation which guarantees “equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens” that the Irish Sign Language using community would have full access to the 1916 Proclamation in their own language. This facilitates full participation of Deaf citizens on what will be an historic day. This is extremely important as Deaf citizens are continually excluded from daily participation in all walks of life, and this impinges on the opportunity to engage as full citizens. One of the reasons for this is the fact that ISL is not legally recognised or protected in Ireland as an official language of the State, a fact that increasingly marks us out from our European and International counterparts.

The Irish Deaf Society, the Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College Dublin and Interesource Group (Ireland) Limited work closely on many educational projects and for the 1916 Proclamation Translation project, we convened a small team of translators and interpreters to work on the translation, filming and production of the text. Because Irish Sign Language has no written form, the digital version is a de facto translation: like written translations, it is highly prepared and each element is considered in terms of formality, context, meaning and political resonance. The visual quality of the translator signing has to be crisp and clear – to do otherwise renders the translation ‘inaudible’ for an audience for whom visual access is key. And access to this key historical text is the primary goal of this work.

The Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme commissioned Interesource Group to produce the translated video to ensure that alongside the reading of the 1916 Proclamation which guarantees “equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens” that the Irish Sign Language using community would have full access to the 1916 Proclamation in their own language. This facilitates full participation of Deaf citizens on what will be an historic day. This is extremely important as Deaf citizens are continually excluded from daily participation in all walks of life, and this impinges on the opportunity to engage as full citizens. One of the reasons for this is the fact that ISL is not legally recognised or protected in Ireland as an official language of the State, a fact that increasingly marks us out from our European and International counterparts.

Today, the Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Professor Patrick Prendergast, launched a collection of 17 translations of the 1916 Proclamation in the languages taught at the College which includes Irish Sign Language. The translation of the Official 1916 Proclamation in ISL translation as seen here will also be available on websites across the country.