Many breakaway unions have been established in Ireland over the years, usually as the result of workers in existing unions feeling they were receiving a bad service or that their interests conflicted with those of the wider membership.
Both factors played a part in the creation of the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association.
Its members unanimously believed they were "shafted" in the 1994 Iarnrod Eireann productivity deal accepted by the rest of the workforce and vowed it would never happen again.
It was this mindset which prevented them from seeing the undoubted benefits of the "New Deal for Locomotive Drivers" negotiated by SIPTU and the National Bus and Railworkers' Union over the past three years.
Ironically ILDA's executive secretary, Mr Brendan Ogle, played a leading role in those negotiations before taking the strategic decision to withdraw, along with over 100 other drivers, to form the new union.
If they had stayed with their old unions the "New Deal" would have been defeated when it was balloted on last February.
The precedents are not auspicious. Only one man in Irish labour history has had any success setting up a breakaway union and that was Jim Larkin who, in his contrary way, set up two of them.
Ten years ago Larkin's two creations, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland came together to form SIPTU.
Larkin succeeded because he set up mass unions to represent unskilled and semi-skilled workers ignored by the traditional craft unions.
The ILDA is a manifestation of that process in reverse, a small group of highly trained blue-collar workers trying to disengage from unions representing all grades of transport employees. There was further irony in the fact that the only surviving breakaway union of recent times is the NBRU, itself a breakaway from SIPTU, which has been even more vehement in its opposition to the ILDA than SIPTU.
The reason is that the ILDA was competing to represent the same tiny pool of train-drivers. It was, and is, a recipe for constant conflict in Iarnrod Eireann. Ten weeks out of work has certainly drained the resources of the ILDA.
Members have lost at least £5,000 each, and the association has a legal bill well in excess of £80,000.
In spite of this, the ILDA is still committed to its Supreme Court appeal of its unsuccessful bid for union recognition in the High Court.
The solidarity born out of 10 weeks may have strengthened the resolve of some ILDA members to press on. But solidarity on the picket line is no guarantee of longevity. In contrast to the increasingly desperate tactics of the ILDA, Ianrod Eireann, the recognised unions and the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, pursued a consistent if expensive policy of non-confrontational containment. Yesterday Mr Ogle's members told him time had run out. It has probably also run out for the ILDA unless it can find a recognised union to take it under its wing, but there are unlikely to be any takers in the present circumstances.