Ireland And The Irish Quotes

I'm Irish. I think about death all the time.

The Irish do not want anyone to wish them well; they want everyone to wish their enemies ill.

Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.

I had that stubborn streak, the Irish in me I guess.

You cannot conquer Ireland; you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.

The Irish seem to have more fire about them than the Scots.

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent.

Let no man write my epitaph. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.

Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.

And the merry love the fiddle, and the merry love to dance.

Dublin university contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.

How would you know a Cork footballer? He's the one who thinks that oral sex is just talking about it.

You know, I have a theory about Charlie Haughey. If you give him enough rope, he'll hang you.

I used to go missing a lot... Miss Canada, Miss United Kingdom, Miss World.

Hugging trees has a calming effect on me. I'm talking about enormous trees that will be there when we are all dead and gone. I've hugged trees in every part of this little island.

'A Naval History of Britain' which begins in the 7th century has to explain what it means by Britain. My meaning is simply the British Isles as a whole, but not any particular nation or state or our own day... 'Britain' is not a perfect word for this purpose, but 'Britain and Ireland' would be both cumbersome and misleading, implying an equality of treatment which is not possible. Ireland and the Irish figure often in this book, but Irish naval history, in the sense of the history of Irish fleets, is largely a history of what might have been rather than what actually happened.

I have a thing for red-haired Irish boys, as we know.

Books, the children of the brain.

I was born on a storm-swept rock and hate the soft growth of sun-baked lands where there is no frost in men's bones.

No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation's heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.

You know it is summer in Ireland when the rain gets warmer.

There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.

If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.

What's the use of being Irish if you can't be thick?

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.

I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Ireland, sir, for good or evil, is like no other place under heaven, and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse.

It's better to spend money like there's no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there's no money.

Ireland is a fruitful mother of genius, but a barren nurse.

The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scotts as a joke, but the Scotts haven't seen the joke yet.

All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?'

They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

I was raised in an Irish-American home in Detroit where assimilation was the uppermost priority. The price of assimilation and respectability was amnesia. Although my great-grandparents were victims of the Great Hunger of the 1840's, even though I was named Thomas Emmet Hayden IV after the radical Irish nationalist exile Thomas Emmet, my inheritance was to be disinherited. My parents knew nothing of this past, or nothing worth passing on.

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.

God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world.

I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning [to] consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?

The immigrant's heart marches to the beat of two quite different drums, one from the old homeland and the other from the new. The immigrant has to bridge these two worlds, living comfortably in the new and bringing the best of his or her ancient identity and heritage to bear on life in an adopted homeland.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

I was court-martialled in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.

May you live all the days of your life.