"The passage of the National Service Act in January 1916 which threatened conscription in Ireland was one of the causes of The Easter Rising. The 1916 Rising represented the first major demonstration of force since the United Irishman rising of 1798. The insurrections of 1803, 1848 and 1867 had been small in comparison. (The Cambridge History of the British Empire 1959)
"Ireland is too great to be unconnected to us, and too near to us to be dependant on a foreign state, and too little to be independent" (C.T. Grenville to the Duke of Rutland, December 3, 1784)
Feeling a little Irish today, it's a common complaint of the Irish!!