Dissenters, humanists, atheists, non-believers, pagans, free-thinkers, pastafarians, and those unaligned with any religion are Irish too. Therefore:
Aim
The principal aim of HI is to encourage Irish society towards a secular republic across the whole island of Ireland: “To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter“, and in so doing to create a society based on compassion, equality, and reason, with liberty and justice for all.
The organisation and it’s members shall use exclusively peaceful means to achieve it’s aim(s).
Genesis
While the ‘father’ of Irish republicanism Theobald Wolfe Tone spoke of “Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter”, the result of the independence movement of the early 1920’s was the British apartheid solution of 6 and 26 county states.
The northern 6 counties became a Protestant state, while the southern 26 counties became a Roman Catholic state. Ulster continued in the British empire, while the rest of the island was surrendered into Rome’s empire of hegemony. Discrimination based on religion was the norm in both states.
No similar facilitation of the third strand of Irish society was attempted; but the dissenters did not leave, or become less republican, or cease their aspiration to equality.
The policy of “divide and rule” which brought so much wealth to the British Empire was never intended for the benefit of those ruled. The unnatural division of the island of Ireland is such as to threaten the island, and the peace of the divider, as current events show.
This is because Brexit has exposed the structural weakness of the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. That Kingdom, which united only in 1801, is similar to a 4-piece jigsaw wobbling in an inter-national earthquake; only 3 parts are contiguous; the fourth is not attached by nature.
The unnatural nature of the association of Britain and the northern part of Ireland is exposed by Brexit.
Where Britain’s solution to the movement for independence/home rule was segregation based on religion, the peoples solution to the incompatible strains of Brexit is one State, free of religion.
Values
The first proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1867 makes clear that apart from separation, that republicans were “in favour of absolute liberty of conscience, and complete separation of Church and State.“