"If you are a oppressed, persecuted and tyrannised people it is not "treason" to seek to overthrow those who hold power over you.


For over 700 years that was the situation in Ireland."

Bullshit. For the vast part of those 700 years Raggy Ireland was at peace. In 1916 that Easter week end and in the two year run up to that Easter week-end less than 10 Irishmen plotted the Rising and they planned and plotted it to ensure failure, thereby lying to their Volunteers the length and breadth of the country.

"For an hour the Helga showered shells inland from a 12-pounder.
Because of the terrain, including the railway bridge curving past the union hall, the Helga couldn't fire directly at the building; instead, it adopted the technique of 'dropping fire' - lobbing shells into the air, above the obstacles, hopefully to drop on its target."

Which of the two occasions the Helga fired are you referring to Jim? It would appear to be the shelling of Liberty Hall and as for "showering shells on anything" over the course of three-and-a-half hours 24 shells were fired ( One shell every 8 minutes 45 seconds - Roughly the same as the PIRA's Bloody Friday bombing campaign in 1972 - Only difference Helga was laying down targeted fire on an enemy position while the PIRA were deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilian shoppers). "Dropping Fire" is a standard tactic for NGFS so nothing new there, and "hopefully" didn't enter into it the target was destroyed by 24 shells and abandoned by the enemy.

"The Volunteers in the Sackville Street area cheered at this own goal."

Well Jim they had to cheer at something, they also had to make stuff up, after all come the 29th April they had S.F.A. to laugh at at all did they?

The Mendicity Institute, that the "Volunteers" occupied contained the poorest and the most vulnerable in the city. What did the Volunteers do with them Jim? They simply turned them out to fend for themselves while they "gallantly" blazed away.

The Mendicity Institute "One of Dublin's oldest charities, established in 1818, Captain Seam Heuston of Commandant Daly's 1st Battalion was deployed here — operating under orders from James Connolly — about a half-mile to the west of the Four Courts on the south side of the Liffey at Usher's Island. His task was to control the route between the nearby Royal Barracks (now the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks) and the Four Courts.

Upon taking the building, Heuston expelled the down-and-outs occupying it. Despite just being required to hold the position for a couple of hours, allowing other Volunteers to 'settle in' to their positions nearby, Heuston's force of just 13 kept it until Wednesday when they were surrounded and Heuston surrendered to save lives." - Source: easter1916.ie website

The lives Heuston was most concerned with saving of course were those of his own men - the innocents he had turned out could go to blazes as far as he was concerned.