Belfast, you are spot on. I was at the 1916 commemoration. It was a very peaceful parade, up the Falls Road to Casement Park. You have, by yuor post augmented what I have said in many posts about the North of Ireland, that is that, the I.R.A. were practically non-existant. There were a few incidents around the border from time to time, but they were few and far between. Sure there were people like Joe Cahill who would show up at the odd ceiligh and such, but the truth is that I would not have known how to go about joining the I.R.A. I did not know any one person in my whole district ( New Lodge Road) who was a member or anyone even remotely connected to any republican group. It was as you said, the actions and the behavour of the police and the british soldiers that forced the catholic community to look for protection somewhere else, and the only option open to them was to turn to the only group they had ever heard of, and that was the I.R.A. This opening presented the I.R.A. with a opportunity to start recruiting, something which would have been unnecessary if the police and army had done their job in a non-partisan manner. They did not and the I.R.A. took advantage of this and moved in. I know many people all members of the I.R.A. who before 1970 had never even heard of 1916 or 1798, and who actually knew very little about Ireland. All they wanted to do was have a chance of earning a decent living and most had no interest in politics, that all changed, and in short order the whole community was republican, thanks to the british army and the police, they did what the I.R.A. could not have acccomplished in a normal situation, they made it necessary to be a nationalist, they made it fashionable to be a nationalist, they made it desirable to be Irish. A Terrible Beauty was reborn.