Irish republicanism has seen many divisions over the course of its history and since 1916, such divisions have often resulted in new introductory letters coming to be associated with the names 'Sinn Fein' and 'Irish Republican Army', but that was not the case in 1974. Unlike the Officials and Provisionals, unlike the Continuity and the 'Real', the INLA did not feel compelled to make a claim to the mythological mandate of the sainted Second Dail, likewise the IRSP did not feel compelled to embrace an apostolic succession tracing its origins back to the organization whose origins were so reactionary, James Connolly felt compelled to hurl fiery polemics against it time and again. Symbolically, the decision to forego becoming yet another Sinn Fein and yet another IRA, testified to Costello, and those who joined him, having recognised that what was needed wasn't simply to create a newly purified, or more militant, version of the Republican Movement. Instead, Costello and those others who founded our movement, recognised, as Connolly had before them, that what was required was an alternative to simple Irish republicanism. What was needed, and what they founded, was a movement organised on the basis of a different analysis, one that wed the national liberation struggle to the class struggle of Irish workers and held that the two were inseparable.

No longer would the IRSM seek the Republic of Tone or even the Republic of 1916, born as it was in the compromise of Connolly with the less revolutionary orientation of the IRB leaders. Henceforth, the IRSM would seek a 32-county Irish workers' republic and would not be satisfied with anything less. It was the tremendous vision of Seamus Costello to forge this break with the past, so as to not be defeated by the same contradictions that had defeated Irish republicanism at each turn in the past, which led Nora Connolly O'Brien to say that Costello was the one contemporary who most represented the views of her father. Costello, like Connolly before him, broke with those who would ask the working people of Ireland to wait, to first focus on getting the Brits out, on unification, and then address their own interests. It took vision and courage and resolve of steel, but Costello, in founding the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, said the workers will wait no more. The workers of Ireland will win their liberation and in doing so, they will liberate their nation, but they will no longer fight for a republic in which they will remain oppressed.

For his vision, his courage, his commitment to a revolutionary path, lesser men killed Seamus three years later. Because this perspective, held solely by the IRSM, tore asunder the blinding ideology of old republicanism, it had the capacity to move beyond the hopeless repetition of past defeats and lead the Irish people to victory, by not simply removing the British masters, but by removing all masters. Because it alone offered the way forward to victory, it terrified reactionaries of all shades, ¯imperialists, native capitalists, and the traditional leadership of the Republican Movement, whose positions of power rested on maintaining a monopoly over the course of the republican struggle. Because it terrified them, they killed Seamus Costello. Then they killed Miriam Daly, Noel Little, Ronnie Bunting, Jim Power, and many others. Because they came after, to defend and move forward the revolutionary vision of Seamus Costello, they killed Ta Power, Gino Gallagher, and others like them.

They have not killed the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, however, nor has our movement been turned from the revolutionary path it set out upon thirty years ago. So long as our movement remains alive, to present a revolutionary alternative to the approach advocated by traditional Irish republicanism, the spirit of Seamus Costello remains alive. We in the International Department of the Irish Republican Socialist Party are dedicated to the revolutionary tradition embodied by Seamus Costello, which provides Irish working people with the means to achieve their liberation. Through the work of our Department, we will strive to ensure that Costello's heritage, as represented by the IRSP, provides a beacon for the working people of the world as well.

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