Seamus Costello | |
|---|---|
Séamus Mac Coisdealbha | |
 Costello during a December 1975 interview withRTÉ | |
| Wicklow County Councillor | |
| In office March 1967 – October 1977 | |
| Constituency | Bray |
| Bray Urban District Councillor | |
| In office 1977–1967 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1939 Old Connaught Avenue,Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland |
| Died | 5 October 1977 (aged 37 or 38) North Strand,Dublin, Ireland |
| Manner of death | Assassination by gunshot |
| Political party | Irish Republican Socialist Party |
| Other political affiliations | Sinn Féin (1955–1970) Official Sinn Féin (1970–1974) |
| Spouse | Maeliosa Costello |
| Children | 4 |
| Nickname | The Boy General |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service |
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| Rank |
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| Battles/wars | |
Seamus Costello (Irish:Séamus Mac Coisdealbha, 1939 – 5 October 1977) was an Irish paramilitary and politician. He was a leader ofOfficial Sinn Féin and theOfficial Irish Republican Army and latterly of theIrish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and theIrish National Liberation Army (INLA).
He argued for a combination of socialist politics on economic issues and traditionalphysical force Irish republicanism. He is best remembered for the founding of the IRSP and the INLA. He was a victim of a feud with his former comrades in the Official IRA.
Born into a middle-class family inBray,County Wicklow, he was educated atChristian Brothers College, Monkstown Park. He left school at 15 and became a mechanic and later car salesman in Dublin.
At the age of 16 he joinedSinn Féin and theIrish Republican Army. Within a year, he was commanding anactive service unit in southCounty Londonderry during theBorder Campaign, where his leadership skills and burning down of the courthouse inMagherafelt earned him the nickname of "the Boy General".[1] The unit's most publicised actions included the destruction of bridges.[2]
He was arrested inGlencree, County Wicklow, in 1957 and sentenced to six months inMountjoy Prison. On his release, he was immediately interned in theCurragh prison camp for two years.[3]
He spent his time in prison studying. He was particularly inspired by his studies of theVietnamese struggle for independence.[4] He became a member of the escape committee which engineered the successful escapes ofRuairí Ó Brádaigh andDáithí Ó Conaill, among others. Costello would later refer to this time as his "university days".
Costello eventually reached the rank ofAdjutant-General of the IRA.[5] In 1964 Costello was sent to the recently opened Chinese embassy in Paris to seek assistance from the Chinese government.[6]
After his release, Costello worked to rebuild the republican movement, beginning by building a local base of support inCounty Wicklow as Sinn Féin's local organiser. Costello strongly supported the movement's left-wing orientation of these years, especially its emphasis on grassroots political activism. He helped found a strong tenants' association inBray, and also became involved with thecredit union movement and various farmers' organisations. During this period he married a woman, Maeliosa Gaynor from Rapla nearNenagh,County Tipperary,[7] who also became active in the republican movement. Costello was elected to bothBray Urban District Council andWicklow County Council in 1966.
Afterthe Troubles broke out inNorthern Ireland in 1969, factions in both the IRA and Sinn Féin were divided overabstentionism and the left-wing faction's socialist politics. The republican movement divided into Official and Provisional movements in 1969/70, but Costello remained with the Officials, owing to a greater commitment to left-wing politics. He served as vice-president of Official Sinn Féin and as a staff officer in theOfficial IRA.
He was the Official IRA's Director of Operations.[8]
Costello was opposed to the 1972 ceasefire and started to clash openly with the leadership, in particular withEoin Ó Murchú. Costello was subjected to court martial in 1974.Brigid Makowski, who was called to testify at his court martial in Mornington in County Meath, remarked that "Jesus could have testified on Costello's behalf and it wouldn't have changed the verdict."[9] He was dismissed from OSF in 1974 after the OSF leadership blocked his supporters from attending the party convention.
He stood again in the 1974 local elections and topped the poll for theWicklow County Council and theBray Urban District Council.[10]
At a meeting in theLucan Spa Hotel nearDublin, on 8 December 1974, theIrish Republican Socialist Party was formed by republicans, socialists, and trade unionists with Costello as the chairperson.
At a private meeting later the same day, theIrish National Liberation Army was formed with Costello as the Chief of Staff, although its existence was to be kept secret for a time. The new grouping intended to combine left-wing politics with the "armed struggle" against British security forces in Northern Ireland.
Within days of its founding, the fledglingIrish Republican Socialist Movement was embroiled in a bitter feud with the Official IRA. The feud resulted in the attempted assassination of Official IRA leaderSean Garland who was wounded in an INLA attack near his home in theBallymun area of Dublin (Garland was wounded six times but survived the attack). Before a truce was reached, three members of the IRSP were dead. Later that same year,Bernadette Devlin McAliskey resigned from the IRSP over the failure of a motion that would have brought the INLA under IRSP control, taking over half of theArd Chomhairle members with her.
In July 1976 Costello was replaced as INLA chief-of-staff by South Londonderry manEddy McNicholl, although he still wielded considerable influence within the movement, retaining his position as chairman of the IRSP.
Despite the truce, Costello was shot dead with a shotgun as he sat in his car on Northbrook Avenue, off the North Strand Road in Dublin on 5 October 1977 allegedly by a member of theOfficial IRA, Jim Flynn, who happened to be in the area at the time.[11] The Official and Provisional IRAs both denied responsibility and Sinn Féin/The Workers' Party issued a statement condemning the killing. Members of an opposing INLA faction in Belfast also denied the killing. However, the INLA eventually deemed Flynn the person responsible, and he was shot dead in June 1982 in the North Strand, Dublin, very close to the spot where Costello died.[12]
Costello is the only leader of an Irish political party killed to date.
At the time of his death, he was a member of the following bodies:
as well as still holding the positions of
His funeral was attended byRuairí Ó Brádaigh, the president ofSinn Féin,Michael O'Riordan of theCommunist Party of Ireland,Bernadette McAliskey and local WicklowTDsLiam Kavanagh (Labour),Ciarán Murphy (Fianna Fáil) andGodfrey Timmins (Fine Gael). At his funeral,Nora Connolly O'Brien, formerSenator and daughter of theEaster Rising leaderJames Connolly, gave the oration.[13]
Of all the politicians and political people with whom I have had conversations and who called themselves followers of Connolly, 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.
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