Best 202 quotes in «ireland quotes» category

It's a great wonder to me, the Irish attachment to our history. What is it but a series of lamentations?

I've always liked it here. Part of me is Irish. My family comes from the west coast, so whenever I come to Ireland I get a wee tingling in my heart that I'm where I belong.

I was born in Northern Ireland in 1951. I lived most of my life there until 1986 or 1987

It was amazing that I was ever elected.

I would love to write the story of my upbringing in Ireland.

My mum's parents were from Ireland, my dad's mum was American-Irish.

I've lived in the UK for longer than I lived in Ireland. I'm not worried about myself, but it's ridiculous for youngsters.

Oh, all kinds of lunacy happens in Ireland, all kinds of lunacy.

I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.

Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland.

The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland, and the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour

The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland.

The Irish aren't great singers, but they have great songs.

The Irish always jest even though they jest with tears.

There is no topicmore soporific and generally boring than the topic of Ireland as Ireland, as a nation.

When John (Giles) was manager of Ireland, much as he loved me, he still dropped me.

My only counsel to Ireland is that in order to become deeply Irish, she must become European.

A face on him as long as a hare's back leg.

Alainn, it is no herb that has made me so entirely insatiable, 'tis just being with you.

A landscape fossilized, It's stone-wall patternings Repeated before our eyes In the stone walls of Mayo. Before I turned to go He talked about persistence, A congruence of lives, How, stubbed and cleared of stones, His home accrued growth rings Of iron, flint and bronze - "Belderg

Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening. And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish. Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots' anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions who get their history off the TV.

A nation which fails to adequately remember salient points of its own history, is like a person with Alzheimer's. And that can be a social disease of a most destructive nature.

And he got going from there to America. Worked his passage, I s'pose, like a lot more. And I heard he did well in America, too. Got married there. Had a family. But never came back. And you know why? 'Cause if he did, if he ever set foot in Ireland again, you know who'd be waiting for him, don't you? That's right. The three of 'em. And their box. And the second time they'd make no mistake. It is a much-overlooked fact that not all of the thousands who fled Ireland in former times did so to escape hunger, deprivation, and persecution. There were also those who went to escape the wrath of the Good People. Many stories illustrated this, the one here being typical.

And here I thought that smile you wore was because of me.

And if I was bewildered through those decades, totally bewildered, so was the country I came from. The majority, what was the phrase? 'Condemn utterly what is happening, this barbarity.' But that's all we did. Condemn. And march. But not often enough.

And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. (“How to Write with Style”. Essay, 1985)

Any good history begins in strangeness. The past should not be comfortable. The past should not a familar echo of the present, for if it is familar why revist it? The past should be so strange that you wonder how you and people you know and love could come from such a time.

As Matt walked Rick outside, he whispered, "Don't forget my little secret." He wiggled his eyebrows. "A happy wife. A happy life. Got it?" Rick nodded. "Got it.

As she glanced down at the great distance to the ground below, she whispered in his ear, "You have obviously taken the heights of passion to an entirely new level, Killian O'Brien!

A very wise English lady, one who has much experience of life, once said that young Englishmen of good position are lured into marrying music hall dancers, a thing which occasionally happens to them, because they find these ladies more entertaining and exciting than girls of their own class. I do not know whether this is true or not, but if it is it helps to explain the attractiveness of American women. There is always a certain unexpectedness about them. They are always stimulating and agreeable. It is much more difficult to account for the attractiveness of the English man.

A walking stick is no real use except to a lame man. The walker does not push himself along with it. He does not, when he sets out from home, expect to meet any one whom he wants to hit.

Be at peace all of you, for hunger has a whip, and he will drive the strange away in the night.

After a moment, she announced. "Found it." She held the key up to show him. "Where did you find it?" "Under the back wheel." With laughter in her voice, she said, "If at first you don't succeed..." "I know, I know. Try, try again!" Amelia shook her head. "No, no! You call Moore Detective Agency. She can find anything.

Books of the sages of the ages reflect upon in stages; like honey their words on the tongue give due savour.” {Source: A Green Desert Father}

By God, Lainna, have you truly no notion how badly I want you, then?" "Oh, but did you not once tell me the anticipation is half the pleasure of it?

But listen well. In Tir na nOg, because there is no sorrow, there is no joy. Do you hear the meaning of the seachain's song?

Cad é an mhaith dom eagla a bheith orm? Ní shaorfadh eagla duine ón mbás, dar ndóigh.

By the way, I do enjoy fairytale endings, in case you misunderstood me." He glanced at her and smiled. "I like it when good wins over evil... when the knight defeats the dragon and saves the fair maiden... and when the woodsman saves Little Red Riding Hood. I like it when they say, 'And they lived happily ever after'... Just because I'm a man doesn't mean that I don't have a romantic bone in my body." Rick gave a curt nod. "Men can be romantic, too.

Cowan son of Branieucc, you're the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.

Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist, my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered fieldstone corners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in summer for years Father Thomas, that mad handsome priest, would gather us girls in the basement to dye the rose cotton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daughter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiffening fabric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scissor blade, forming clusters of curved petals the younger children assembled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, sometimes adding tissue paper leaves, all of us gladly laboring like factory workers rather than have to color with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands inviting us to dine, Christ with a shepherd's staff signaling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a drooping head crowned with blackened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, visiting the old parishioners, the sick and bittersweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the perfect lawns of dull neighbors, agnostics we suspected, hawking our handmade linen roses for a donation, bragging how each petal was hand-cut from a pattern drawn by Father Thomas himself, that mad handsome priest, who personally told the Monsignor to go fornicate himself, saying he was a disgruntled altar boy calling home from a phone booth outside a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniffing incense, giddy and drunk with sacrament wine stains on my panties, whispering my oath of unholy love while wiggling uncomfortably on the mad priest's lap, but God he was beautiful with a fine chiseled chin and perfect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gentle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imitate a rose petal in perfect outline, his sharp pencil slanted just so, the tip barely touching so that he could sketch and drink, and cough without jerking, without ruining the work, or tearing the tissue paper, thin as a membrane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday delivered by the dry cleaners, tucked into the crisp black vestment, wrapped around shirt cardboard, pinned to protect the high collar.

Did you ever hear tell,' said Jimmy Farrell, 'of the skulls they have in the city of Dublin? White skulls and black skulls and yellow skulls, and some with full teeth, and some haven't only but one,' and compounded history in the pan of 'an old Dane, maybe, was drowned in the Flood.' My words lick around cobbled quays, go hunting lightly as pampooties over the skull-capped ground. -Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces

Don't become a grumpy old dater! Life ids for living, laughing and loving!Stop searching, start finding!

Don’t you want to experience the world? Find a man? Have sex? Because, I really, really want to have sex.

Do you know what Ireland is?' asked Stephen with cold violence. 'Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.

Do you normally take the time to get to know those you’re sent to kill?

...early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an armed camp at perpetual war with its neighbors, and every farmer claims he is a king.

Early Summer, loveliest season, The world is being colored in. While daylight lasts on the horizon, Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing. The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos. "Welcome, summer" is what he says. Winter's unimaginable. The wood's a wickerwork of boughs. Summer means the river's shallow, Thirsty horses nose the pools. Long heather spreads out on bog pillows. White bog cotton droops in bloom. Swallows swerve and flicker up. Music starts behind the mountain. There's moss and a lush growth underfoot. Spongy marshland glugs and stutters. Bog banks shine like ravens' wings. The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome. The speckled fish jumps; and the strong Swift warrior is up and running. A little, jumpy, chirpy fellow Hits the highest note there is; The lark sings out his clear tidings. Summer, shimmer, perfect days.

Eric Daniels, the boss at Lloyds TSB for example, was paid less than Goggin in 2007 despite delivering three and a half times Bank of Ireland's profits that year. Goggins' total package was 50 percent more than that of Andy Hornby of HBOS, who collected €2.6 million in 2007. The Scottish giant made €6.988 billion that year compared to Bank of Ireland's €1.584 billion.

Finn stood abruptly. "We need to follow 'em." "But aren't they followin' us? If we go after them, the five of us will be goin' around in circles.

Food shouldn’t be that shade of green, lass.” – Faolán MacIntyre