Good point Keith - but Carroll's arguments always jumble up events in order to as you say justify the unjustifiable.

The fires in Sackville Street were started on the 24th April, those fires were not and could not have been started by artillery as there was no artillery in Dublin at that time - I will keep reminding people of this until the factual reality of that sinks in.

All targets thereafter engaged by the Government Forces were occupied by the rebels making them legitimate targets and I will keep reminding people about that too.

The claims and hysteria are now getting farcical:

"forcibly conscripting the imprisoned rebels to fight in Europe"

Now just consider that for a moment, using logic and reason, how on earth could that ever possibly work, you'd have to be a complete and utter idiot even to suggest it. But there again maybe the poster believes that it would be possible by lining up special squads of military policemen to gun them down if they didn't get out of the trench quick enough - but even that wouldn't work would it because all these forcibly conscripted armed former rebels would have to do would be to shoot the special squads of military policemen down.

Conscription in 1918? Again looking at it logically and applying reason. Starting in January 1918 the following would have to be done:

Compile the registers of those eligible;
Set up the Conscription boards for hearings;
Medical screening of conscripts;
Basic military training;
Specialist military training;
Deployment;
Theatre training whilst being held in reserve;
Deployment into the line.

Take the example of an English conscript Harry Patch who was trained as an infantryman, his specialisation was as part of a Lewis Gun team. He was conscripted in October 1916 and deployed to France having completed his basic and specialist training in June 1917 and sent into action (deployed to the line)some time in August or September 1917 as part of the Third Battle of Ypres - Now that spans a period of 10 to 11 months to complete this process. IIRC the proposed date of the suggested introduction of conscription in Ireland was AFTER the start of the German Spring Offensive (March 1918) so the earliest it could be put into practice would be April 1918. Now anybody conscripted in Ireland in April 1918 would be deployed to the line following the Harry Patch model in January or February 1919 - three months after hostilities had ended.

Another rather odd thing can be gleaned from studying the pattern of volunteering in Ireland during the First World War - In the North there was a massive rush to join in 1914 and in 1915. In the South it was a bit more gradual, but there was a surge in 1918, I think a few Irishmen in the South had seen how things were going and read the situation exactly as I have outlined above - (Free lodging, clothes, three squares a day and regular pay - for doing nowt).