Nice fairy tale Jom but it does not stand up when you put the events in order and apply a time line to them.

I have always said that your attention to detail is almost no-existent and your ability with regard to research is careless and shoddy.

1: "The Unionist, armed themselves with smuggled weapons and declared that, under no circumstances they would accept a United Ireland - they were no more than an armed group of traitorous paramilitaries."

But they didn't did they Jom - here's the actual time line for you:

11th April, 1912 - Asquith introduces the Third Irish Home Rule Bill

28th September, 1912 'Ulster Day' - The day when 447,197 people signed the Ulster Covenant, which bound those 447,197 signatories to resist Home Rule by use of "all means necessary".

13th January, 1913 - The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was formed to resist any attempts by the British Government to 'impose' Home Rule on Ulster.

25th November 1913 the Irish Volunteer Force created - its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland" (Shall we just ignore/deny the existence of such previous Nationalist groups as the Gaelic League, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood who for reasons best known to themselves joined the IVF secretly)

December 1913 - British Government ban the import into Ireland of arms.

March 1914 - British Government order troops based in Ireland to deploy to armament depots in the North to safeguard the contents from possible theft by the UVF. By 31st March the troops are in place and the arms depots are secured.

25th April, 1914 - UVF successfully smuggle arms into Ulster - the guns and ammunition having been purchased in Hamburg from a private arms dealer.

21st May, 1914 - A proposed amendment to the Bill that temporarily excludes the whole of Ulster from Government from Dublin for six years is proposed.

8th July, 1914 - Carson and the Irish Unionist Party (mostly Ulster MPs) backed by a Lords' recommendation, supported the government's Amending Bill in the Lords for the "temporary exclusion of Ulster" from the workings of the future Act, but the number of counties (four, six or nine) and whether exclusion was to be temporary or permanent, were all still to be negotiated.

26th July, 1914 - IVF successfully smuggle arms into Howth - the guns and ammunition having been purchased in Germany.

4th August, 1914 - The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland declares war on Germany. UVF members were subsequently to volunteer for service in the British Army. Asquith abandons his Amending Bill.

5th September, 1914 - The Supreme Council of the IRB meet and decide that they will stage an uprising before the war ends and to do this they will secure help from Germany.

18th September, 1914 - The Government of Ireland Act 1914 receives Royal Assent.

Doesn't quite tally with your little one liner does it Jom. The UVF never using the guns it smuggled in and then the UVF almost to a man go off and volunteer to fight the Germans (To be fair quite a number of the Redmond faction of the IVF did the same). The Pearse faction of the IVF just one month after the war starts votes to collude with the enemy in order to turn it's guns on British Troops and Irish Policemen in Dublin on the 24th April, 1916.