So is this all to do with your "pecking order" Jim? You get to tell people what they think and irrespective of the truth of the matter you get to tell them what they said? And you have got the brass-neck to witter on about bully boys.

You came out on this thread with a very clear statement that both Keith A and myself had said that we thought "that Ireland was not entitled to Independence".

If that is true then show us the post where either of us has stated anything even remotely like that.

"I've given you my reasons for doing so" - Unfortunately the reasons you have given do not meet the criteria of being anything even remote like saying that we thought "that Ireland was not entitled to Independence".

"You still offer no substantiation to your claims"

Now let me see what my "claims" were:

1: That the Home Rule Bill of 1912 was passed by Parliament to become the Government of Ireland Act 1914 - You on the other hand had stated that it hadn't because it had been defeated by Tories and the House of Lords - The only substantiation I require for this is that the Bill became an Act, and anyone with even a modicum of intelligence can look that up.

2: That there was no Mutiny at the Curragh in March 1914 - you claimed that it was "The first Act of Military aggression" - Substantiation that no mutiny had occurred was provided in the link you yourself supplied.

3: That the Rising did not have the support of the people - hell it didn't even have the support of the Leadership of the movement that carried it out. You on the other hand claimed that it had the support of "the people of Ireland" your substantiation being Sinn Fein election victory in 1918 - sorry but what happened in 1918 does not in any way serve as an indicator of how the population felt on March 23rd 1916. The Irish Volunteers in 1914 numbered ~180,000 to ~200,000 as a generous estimate, when war came this organisation was split into the Redmondite Faction (92.5%) and the Pearse Faction (7.5%). The Redmondites supported the British War effort the Pearse faction did not instead they wanted an armed rising supported by Germany. All that is a matter of record

4: The Leaders of the rising and signatories of the Proclamation colluded with the enemy in time of war. Your idiotic response to that was that they had only asked Germany for weapons, your substantiation a photograph showing a propaganda banner.

What substantiates my claim:
- The IRB meeting in September 1914 to stage an armed rising while Great Britain was engaged in a war with Germany and that assistance from Germany should be sought:
- The German declaration of November 1914
- The Ireland Report submitted to German High Command by Sir Roger Casement in 1915 requesting that German Officers be made available to act as advisors and for German troops to be landed on the west coast of Ireland
- The capture and arrest of Sir Roger Casement on 21st April 1916 after he had landed from a German submarine off Banna Strand.
- The capture of the Captain and crew of the Aud a German ship transporting German arms in time of war to the rebels. The arms never arrived as the crew scuttled the ship to avoid capture by the Royal Navy.
- The reference in the Proclamation to Germany as "Gallant Allies in Europe".

All the above are all matters of record and established fact.

5: You claimed that the Government of Ireland Act 1914 had been altered - All the evidence indicates that it had not - Asquith abandoned his Amending Bill on the 4th August 1914 (Something else had come up)

6: You claimed that the Unionists had forced the condition of permanent partition into the Amendment Bill Asquith was working on - They hadn't they had accepted a temporary agreement for six years on the 8th July 1914. Again all a matter of record.

7: You claimed that conscription was a significant factor "immediately the war broke out" - It couldn't have been as conscription did not exist as far as the British Armed forces were concerned, it was not introduced until 1916 and expressly excluded Ireland.

8: You claimed that Dublin was bombarded by British Heavy Artillery - it wasn't, no heavy artillery was deployed in Ireland and you were supplied a link that clearly established that fact.

9: You claimed that the fires that started in Dublin were caused by British artillery fire - I pointed out to you that looters started the fires on Sackville Street on the 24th April, 1916 and that British artillery did not arrive in Dublin until the day after, to substantiate my claim I provided a link to a joint RTE and Boston College Chronology of the Easter Rising. At no time at all has anybody ever claimed that artillery fire did not start fires, but they were not the sole cause of the fires as you claimed.

10: You claimed that Lloyd George has written a letter to Carson guaranteeing permanent partition - No proof ever given of this by you. All accounts on the other hand indicate that what assurance that Lloyd George give Carson was that the Unionists would not be forced into an Ireland ruled from Dublin against their will.

11:You claim that conscription was used as a threat or a bargaining chip in relation to the enactment of the Home Rule Act of 1914 - all immaterial as conscription was never enforced in Ireland and after the Easter Rising in 1916 as far as the Unionists were concerned the 1914 Act was a dead duck , this turned out to be the case and it was repealed and replaced by the 1920 Act which was enacted and accepted by the Unionists in the North and rejected by Sinn Fein.