The Workers’ Republic, May 1899.
Transcribed Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
The re-appearance on the journalistic horizon of our little paper [1] will, no doubt, cause somewhat of a flutter in the ranks of both friends and enemies.
Our previous effort in the same line, all too brief and meteoric as it was, if it sufficed to win for the cause we represent the bitterest hatred of the political tricksters whose treacheries it exposed, also served to win to our side the steadfast adhesion and ungrudging support of fresh hosts of friends. For both we return our thanks. We would wish for no better proof of the success of our efforts, no surer guarantee that our shots had gone home, than the fact that we had aroused hatred where we had only met with indifference, that furious opposition had replaced careless toleration. And in the adhesion to our principles, evidenced in the first place by our largely increased membership, and in the second place by the surprisingly large vote cast in the North Dock Ward of Dublin for our comrade Stewart standing upon a defiantly uncompromising Socialist platform [2] – we have the verification of the doctrine we have held forth, in spite of the doubts of friends and the sneers of foes, since this party was first launched in the summer of ’96, viz. that the only policy to pursue with the Irish Democracy, if it is ever to be won to Socialism, is to preach the revolutionary gospel in all its pristine purity, fresh and undiluted with economic heresy or political time-serving; and having so reared the banner aloft, to follow its fortunes in a like spirit until the good work be done.
In this spirit we have entered the field of public life in Ireland, in this spirit the first issues of the Workers’ Republic were conceived, and in this spirit the present publication will also be conducted. We have now a paper of our own, a printing plant of our own, and a staff as capable of giving a reasoned exposition of the faith that is in them as any in Ireland. We are therefore free of that dependence on the goodwill of a capitalist printer which cramped our efforts in the past, and although we are likely to make many mistakes in the mere technical minutiae of our work, we feel now that we have turned the corner of adversity and need have no fear of the future.
Therefore, friends and comrades in the fight, the Workers’ Republic salutes you with joyfulness as it salutes our oppressors with defiance, and “RESURGAM”, “I will rise again” is its cry as it is the cry of the disinherited the world over. Robbed and despoiled as we are, exiles in our own land wherever that land may be, degraded to the lot of “human tools to build another’s pride”, we of the working class, toiling painfully up the ages from ignorance to knowledge, from superstition to science, from Bondage to Freedom, crushed into the earth as our fathers have been, we yet proudly take up their burden and, casting aside all thoughts of compromise with the forces of iniquity, we devote ourselves anew to the task of uprooting the last traces of slavery from this old earth of ours.
Let the great ones of the world note this cry, the cry of the revolutionary spirit, welling up from the hearts of their rebellious slaves:
RESURGAM: I will rise again.
1. The Workers’ Republic had not appeared since 22 October 1898, due to the Irish Socialist Republican Party’s lack of resources.
2. E.W. Stewart stood for the ISRP in the local elections in January, and received 448 votes (12 per cent of the total).
Last updated on 29.7.2007