I'm reading about the Easter Rising and the wiki article about it states that the Rising failed because of superior numbers and artillery of the British forces. With WW1 commencing, how was Britain able to commit anything of worth to the suppression of the Rising? We're there British forces in Ireland?
I'll pull the exact units and the source up when I get home (source is on my bookshelf) but there were some units that were on holiday or currently on reserve status that were called up. In fact, it has been argued that some of the rebels' success is directly attributable to the fact that the British were mainly able to commit green troops that had, in some instances, not finished basic training yet. The British also did leave some units in the home islands in case of invasion, but largely the units deployed to Ireland in 1916 were units that simply weren't deployed to the European front at that time.