Seamus Costello: Fallen Comrade of the IRSM

[Danielle Ni Dhighe <danielle@xxxxxxxx>]

Fallen Comrade of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

Seamus Costello
Chairperson - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Chief of Staff - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 5 October 1977

Seamus Costello was born in Bray, Co. Wicklow, in 1939. At the
age of 16, he joined Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army.

Within a year, he was commanding an Active Service Unit of the IRA in
South Derry, where his leadership skills earned him the nickname
of "The Boy General". The most publicised actions of his unit
included the destruction of bridges and the burning of Magherafelt
courthouse.

He was arrested in Glencree, Co. Wicklow, in 1957 and sentenced to
six months in Mountjoy Prison. On his release, he was immediately
interned in the Curragh prison camp for two years.

He spent his time in prison studying. He was particularly inspired by
his studies of the Vietnamese struggle. He became a member of the
escape committee which engineered the successful escapes of Ruari
O'Bradaigh and Daithi O'Connell, among others. Costello would later
refer to this time as his "university days".

After his release, Costello worked to rebuild the Republican
Movement, beginning by building a local base of support in Co.
Wicklow as Sinn Fein's local organiser. He helped found a strong
Tenants Association in Bray, and also became involved with the Credit
Union movement and various farmers' organisations. During this
period, he found time to marry a Tipperary woman, Maeliosa, who also
became active in the Republican Movement. Costello stood for
election to the Bray Urban District Council in 1967 and was
successful.

During the split of the Republican Movement into Official and
Provisional movements in 1969, Costello remained with the Officials,
serving as Vice-President of Official Sinn Fein and as a Staff
Officer in the Official IRA.

As the Officials began their slide into reformist politics, Costello's
opposition caused him to be dismissed from the OIRA and suspended
from OSF. He was dismissed from OSF in 1974 after the OSF leadership
undemocratically blocked his supporters from attending the party
convention.

At a meeting in the Lucan Spa, a hotel near Dublin, on 10 December
1974, the Irish Republican Socialist Party was formed by republicans,
socialists, and trade unionists with Costello as the Chairperson.

At a private meeting later the same day, the Irish National Liberation
Army was formed with Costello as the Chief of Staff, although its
existence was to be kept secret for a time.

Within days of its founding, the fledgling Irish Republican Socialist
Movement was to begin a baptism of fire at the hands of the OIRA.
Members of the IRSM would be attacked and even killed. Before a
truce was reached, three members of the young movement were dead.

Despite the truce, Costello was gunned down by a member of the OIRA
in Dublin on 5 October 1977.

At the time of his death, he was a member of the following bodies:
Wicklow County Council, County Wicklow Committee of Agriculture,
General Council of Committees of Agriculture, Eastern Regional
Development Organisation, National Museum Development Committee, Bray
Urban District Council, Bray Branch of the Irish Transport and
General Workers Union, Bray and District Trade Unions Council (of
which he was president 1976-77), and the Cualann Historical Society,
as well as still holding the positions of Chairperson of the IRSP
and Chief of Staff of the INLA.

At his funeral, James Connolly's daughter Nora said "he was the only
one who truly understood what James Connolly meant when he spoke of
his vision of the freedom of the Irish people."

*******

"I owe my allegiance to the working class." - Seamus Costello

He died as he lived: a Republican Socialist. Remember him with
honour and pride.

*******

First Allegiance - A Socialist Republic
By Bernadette Devlin McAliskey

My personal acquaintance and friendship with Seamus Costello began in
1973. Before then I knew him only, as most people in Ireland, by
reputation.

On hearing of his death, I could find no words of my own to express
the deep sense of loss I felt, both personally and as a revolutionary
socialist committed to the struggle for Irish freedom. I took
therefore the words of a fellow revolutionary on the death of Malcolm
X, the black revolutionary champion of black liberation and socialism
in the U.S.A.: "Without him, we feel suddenly vulnerable, small and
weak, somewhat frightened, not by the prospect of death, but of life
and struggle without his contribution, his strength and inspiration".

There is no doubt that the struggle continues and its victory or
defeat is not measured solely by the number or quality of our fallen
comrades individually. Yet it is equally true that in every
generation of struggle the combination of circumstances, history and
the nature of the struggle itself, produces from the ranks of its
rebels a few, and a very few individuals who, notwithstanding the
fundamental principles of organisation, political correctness and
practical ability, common to many, rise head and shoulders above the
rest, with a potential for leadership, far beyond the ranks of the
already committed. Such a comrade was Seamus Costello.

Brutally murdered by petty, small-minded men of no vision whose only
place in history is to serve as a warning to others how
revolutionaries gone wrong can degenerate into worse than
nothingness, Seamus Costello, for all that he was and did in his
lifetime, was only at the beginning of his potential contribution to
the achievement of national liberation and socialism in this
generation. That is not to say that Seamus was above making mistakes
or that he was always politically correct. There were many questions
on which I disagreed with him, and which I considered crucial to the
development of the struggle. These remain unresolved.

Nonetheless, in leaving the Official Republican Movement and taking
the initiative of forming the IRSP, Seamus Costello proved his
ability in practice - once convinced that the approach of the
organisation to which he belonged was wrong and could not be altered
from within - to take on the daunting, but necessary task of building
an organisation capable and willing to carry the struggle forward.
The fact that he was capable of it underlined his key position in the
struggle, and his recognition of the need to forge a revolutionary
force in Ireland from the unification of the republican and labour
movements.

If I did not accept his arguments on how it could be done, I remained
confident that he, again, if he found himself mistaken, would move
further in his political analysis to another approach. He did not
live to see the test of theory in practice.

Much is said of his single mindedness, his ruthlessness and
organisational ability. At his hardest, Seamus Costello was never
hateful, nor was there a fibre of his being that was petty or
personally malicious, and despite the slanders of his enemies, he was
neither politically nor religiously sectarian.

He owed his first allegiance to an ideal - a 32 county socialist
republic. His enemies he defined only as those who consciously strove
to suffocate, distort or deny expression to that goal, and prevent
its achievement. As an orator, he was brilliant and inspiring. In
debate, he was uncompromising, skilled and learned. As an organiser,
he was efficient and did not easily tolerate idleness or half-hearted
effort.

Yet in my mind's eye, when I think of him, I see him laughing. A
sense of humour, the ability to laugh at oneself, and the predicament
in which we find ourselves, is sadly too rare a quality among
revolutionaries. Seamus possessed it in good measure.

His single greatest attribute was, however, his ability to relate to
the mass of the people. His potential as a leader of mass struggle is
not easily replaced. He could inspire not only the dream but the
confidence of its achievement, and the commitment to work towards
that end.

From the ranks of mass struggle, others will come. From the
experience of struggle, the political programme, organisation and
method of struggle will come. But another Seamus Costello may never
come again. When our freedom has been won, let us guard it well,
remembering it was paid for in the blood and the lives of those now
dead, but whose memory lives forever in the hearts of us who loved
them for all that they were and all they might have been, had they
been allowed to live.

*******

Related Websites:

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/costello/
http://www.irsm.org/irsp/costello/
http://www.irsm.org/irsp/costello/bio/


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