Rebels were not forced to stage Easter rising

I’VE been down this tortuous road before with Anthony Leavy (Letters, April 29) in which he wheels out the usual anti-revisionist falsehoods regarding provocation in relation to 1916.

He steadfastly refuses to accept that parliamentary democracy must be fair and just, and not simply a blunt instrument of coercion.

If the British government had believed parliament should be used for such a purpose, it would never have entertained Home Rule – which I repeat, for the umpteenth time, was the law of the land for most of Ireland from September 1914.