100 years ago this week: What the Westmeath Independent said of the first sitting of Dail Eireann

This is an edited extract from the editorial view of the Westmeath Independent published in the edition following the establishment of Dail Eireann on January 21, 1919.

THE corollary to the sweeping victory of Sinn Fein at the recent General Election was the opening in Dublin, on Tuesday, of An Dail Eireann, or the Constituent Assembly. The question has been frequently asked since the elections, what the victors would do with their new-found power. An Dail Eireann is the answer. The Government of Ireland, on behalf of, the Irish people, is taken over. After more than seven hundred years, the ill-fated connection with Britain is terminated. Ireland is to live in the future as an Independent Irish Republic. That is a big and dramatic transformation, but who can say it is not practical. 
Any action taken by five-sixths of the Nation is practical. What will be impracticable is any attempt to destroy it. No amount of highhanded action; the part of any foreign authority can, succeed. No foreign nation can, at this time of day, come in and mercilessly slaughter the people of Ireland; in defiance of the Declaration of the Rights of Nations, for taking over the management of their domestic and national affairs.
Little as we think of, and little as we expect from the International proceedings now in progress at Paris, action like that would be an outrage which the civilised world would not stand. Anything short of that would not end the life of the momentous assembly created this week. That other nations do not look as lightly upon the grievances of Ireland as our only enemy among the nations of the world would like to think, was brought home to us by the attendance at An Dail Eireann of newspaper representatives from practically every country in the world. Neither the trouble nor expense involved would be undertaken just for the fun of the thing. 
These countries thus represented know how Ireland is and has been treated, and are anxious to know how Ireland intends to get rid of her enslavement. The programme submitted and adopted by the Constituent Assembly supplies the answer. The administration of every branch of the Irish service is to be controlled by the National Parliament. That Parliament will direct a Home and Foreign policy. The development of the country will be influenced from the House of Parliament. From the same source. will be governed the domestic concerns of the country. Such a programme has not been sketched, to be laughed at. It has been adopted to be put in practice no matter what opposition it is, confronted with. Let that be thoroughly well borne in mind.
With actual legislation, any interference from any outside power is impotent so long as the people, give their united support to their own Government. 
That, such support will be given, the answer of the ballot boxes is the best assurance. 
The Constituent Assembly will meet, we have no doubt, with formidable opposition from the enemy power at our doors, but no greater opposition than it will eventually be able to surmount. 
The silent revolution which transferred the land of Ireland,to the people of Ireland, which destroyed the political and social power of the garrison of England, in Ireland, which set up representative public institutions controlled by, the people, was no less a labour of fine achievement than the Constituent Assembly can accomplish today.
England had the opportunity many times within our own day and generation of coming to a good understanding with Ireland. At each such opportunity England preferred to act the burglar. England in the eyes of the world, has nothing to complain of, that Ireland barborously treated as a penal settlement, held as conquered territory for an enemy garrison, has flung away her chains, and in an age of freedom now stands forth as a nation determined to assert and protect her sovereign rights let the consequences be what they may. The world will not stand idly by to see such a nation submitted again to the Calvary of the Cross, and England knows it.