I recently watched a TV Show called 'Rebellion' about the Easter Uprising in Ireland in 1916. Certainly the start of an interesting period of history in Ireland. So, I was thinking - what if those 20,000 guns the Germans sent reached the Irish? Wiki says: 1,250 in Dublin,~2,000–3,000 elsewhere, but they took little part in the fighting(for the Irish). 16,000 troops and 1,000 armed police in Dublin by the end of the week (for the British). Irish: 66 killed 16 executed unknown wounded British: 143 killed 397 wounded So 1250 or so Irish Republicans held out for a week against a much larger British force. Now, add those 20,000 guns to the fray - all potentially additional Irish Republicans, or perhaps enough of a 'morale victory' that more Volunteers rise up elsewhere in Ireland? Prolonged fighting, easily, along with the need for more British Troops - so whats the outcome? This is about a month before the Battle of Verdun - or at least a successful German Offensive there - and a month before Universal Conscription in the UK. So does the UK send more troops? Can it afford to send more troops to Ireland? It surely can't pull them from France, so do the Irish have a chance to blow things up to a bigger scene?
Got to declare an interest here; my maternal grandmother's brother was one of the Irish volunteers in the Dublin GPO. After the rebellion, that entire side of the family changed their name and moved to Scotland incognito. And I know nothing else about them at that time. Bear in mind a lot of the "British" troops on the ground were actually Irish. It's alright talking about an additional 20,000 rifles being available, but it's one thing being handed a rifle and actually being able to hit something when you fire it. Comparatively few people joined the rebellion, even in Dublin, and of those very few had anything like military training. Then as now there were many Protestants in Ireland with an affinity to the Crown; it wasn't as simple as "Irish v British". And not only did the authorities know something was about to happen, but the rebels themselves weren't exactly a rock of unity; MacNeill and Pearse disagreed on whether the rebellion should even go ahead due to the failure to get adequate weapons into the country. I don't think they would have made any difference, personally.
