Pooka,

Well the movie took some (forgiveable given the nature of the medium I think myself) liberties with history. The actual surrender at the beginning to be pedantically historical did not occur at the GPO as the rebels abandoned it at the end of the Easter Rising as it was on fire - subsequent pictures of it's interior show just how gutted it was. In fact, the last headquarters of the Provisional Govt. was a fish shop :) Also, the car bomb bit is not true to history either and the detective who turns on the British to aid Collins is a composite of three different people in real life. My one problem with it was that it didn't show the war outside Dublin where people like Tom Barry or Ernie O'Malley had marked success in Collin's native Cork in guerilla fighting. On the other hand it was about Collins and his most succesful moments were in Dublin so I may just be carping. Yes I think Fine Gael would have reinterred Barry and the others, they are so long dead now and mostly everyone from that period that they can be safely romanticised by whichever govt. is in power.

BTW Paddymac where was this article about the 1,800 rounds per minute rifles? I have to read this for meself, it sounds like you say as if the writer has no idea as to the realities of war from a guerilla standpoint. At that rate of fire, one rifle would use up most of the IRA's magazine in a rather short time I would think. I remember the IRA used to 'doctor' weapons to fire in shorter bursts than normal to try and conserve ammo. First rule of guerilla warfare-mobility. The IRA don't use the medium and heavy machine guns they do have in their armoury much as it is because they are unwieldy.