Famous Irish Quotations Part 2

A Selection of Famous Irish Quotations
( In alphabetical order, K to Z )

Kavanagh, Patrick 1904-1967
I returned to Ireland, Ireland green and chaste and foolish. And when I wandered over my own hills and talked again to my own people I looked into the heart of this life and saw that it was good.
The Green Fool

Kearney, Peader 1883-1942
Soldiers we are, whose lives are pledged to Ireland.
‘A Soldier’s Song’

Kettle, Thomas 1880-1916
My only programme for Ireland consists, in equal parts, of Home Rule and the Ten Commandments. My only counsel to Ireland is, that in order to become deeply Irish, she must become European
‘Apology’

Lalor, Fintan 1807-1849
The principle I state, and mean to stand upon, is this, that the entire ownership of Ireland, moral and material, up to the sun, and down to the centre, is vested of right in the people of Ireland.
Letter, Irish Felon, 24 June 1848

Larkin, James 1876-1947
We are going to make this a year to be spoken of in the days to come….There is a great dawn for Ireland.
Speech, May 1913

This is not a strike, it is a lock-out of the men who have been tyrannically treated by a most unscrupulous scoundrel….By the living God, if they want war, they can have it.
Speech, 26 August 1913

Ledwige, Francis 1891-1917
He shall not hear the bittern cry/ In the wild sky, where he is lain, / Nor voices of the sweeter birds / Above the wailing of the rain.
‘Lament for Thomas MacDonagh’

Lemass, Sean 1899-1971
The historic task of this generation is to secure the economic foundation of independence.
Dail Eireann, 3 June 1959

Unity has got to be thought of as a spiritual development which will be brought about by peaceful, persuasive means.
‘Sean Lemass looks back’, The Irish Press,
28 January 1969

Lynch, Jack 1917-1994
It is evident also that the Stormont government is no longer in control…the Irish government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.
Television address, 13 August 1969, as given in
Speeches and Statements, 1972. Video-tape records
the phrase ‘stand idly by’

I have never and never will accept the right of the minority who happen to be a majority in a small part of the country to opt out of a nation.
The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 14 November
1970

MacBride, Maud Gonne 1866-1953
More and more I realized that Ireland could rely only on force, in some form or another, to free herself.
‘A Servant of the Queen’

MacNeill, Eoin 1867-1945
I wish it then to be clearly understood that under present conditions I am definitely opposed to any proposal that may come forward involving insurrection.
Memorandum to Irish Volunteers, February 1916

MacSwiney, Terence 1879-1920
O my God, I offer my pain for Ireland. She is on the rack.
Letter from Brixton Prison, 5 October 1920

Mahaffy, Sir John 1839-1919
In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs
Epigram attrib.

An Irish Atheist is one who wishes to God he could believe in God
Epigram attrib.

Markievicz, Countess Constance 1868-1927
Armed for the battle, kneel we before Thee / Bless Thou our banners, God of the brave!
‘A Battle Hymn’

McAteer, Edward 1914-1986
We have this London word in our name since 1613 – and really we have never got used to it.
Proposing to amend the name Londonderry, The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 26 May 1973

McGee, Thomas D’Arcy 1825-1868
Long, long ago, beyond the misty space / Of twice a thousand years, / In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race, / Taller than Roman spears.
‘The Celts’

McQuaid, John Charles,
Archbishop of Dublin 1895-1973
To speak of a right to contraception on the part of an individual…is to speak of a right that cannot even exist.
The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 3 April 1971

Meagher, Thomas Francis 1823-1867
Be it in the defence, or be it in the assertion of a people’s liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon.
Speech, Dublin, 28 July 1846.

Mitchel, John 1815-1875
Good night, then, Ireland and Irish tumults, strugglings and vociferations, quackery, puffery and endless talk.
Jail Journal
I know that all weakness is past, and that I am ready for my fourteen years’ ordeal, and for whatever the same may bring me – toil, sickness, ignominy, death.
Jail Journal

O’Connell was, next to the British government, the worst enemy Ireland ever had – or rather the most fatal friend.
The Last Conquest of Ireland.

Moriarty, David,
Bishop of Kerry 1814-1877
When we look down into the fathomless depths of the Fenian conspiracy we must acknowledge that eternity is not long enough nor hell hot enough for such miscreants.
Sermon, February 1867.

Mulcahy, General Richard 1886-1971
… unless we take very stern measures, we will not throw back the tide of lawlessness and the tide of lust and loot that some mad political leaders have stirred up in their trains in this country.
On Military Executions, Dail Eireann,
17 November 1922.

O’Brien, Conor Cruise b. 1917
If I saw Mr Haughey buried at midnight at a cross-roads, with a stake driven through his heart – politically speaking – I should continue to wear a clove of garlic round my neck, just in case.
Observer, 10 October 1982

O’Connell, Daniel 1775-1847
I know that the Catholics of Ireland still remember they have a country, and that they would never accept any advantages as a sect that would destroy them as a people.
Speech against Act of Union, 13 January 1801

Not for all the universe contains would I, in the struggle for what I conceive my country’s cause, consent to the effusion of a single drop of human blood, except my own.
Speech, 28 February 1843

There is not a human being so stultified as to think the English Parliament will do anything for Ireland. I would walk from here to Drogheda and back to see the man who is blockhead enough to expect anything except injustice from an English Parliament.
Speech at Trim, 16 March 1843.

O’Duffy, General Eoin 1892-1944
The only pleasure in freedom is fighting for it.
Dail Eireann, 17 December 1921

O’Higgins, Kevin 1892-1927
Many would like to do with the British what we read that Brian Boru did with the Danes, not far from here. But we did not do it. We were not able to do it.
Bill to enact a Constitution, Dail Eireann,
18 September 1922

These people [the Ulster Unionists] are part and parcel of the nation, and we being the majority and strength of the country…it comes well from us to make a generous adjustment to show that these people are regarded, not as alien enemies, not as planters, but that we wish them to take their share of the responsibilities.
Speech in Dail Eireann, 1922

The Party that was to end Partition, the Party that was to halve taxation, the Party that was to have every man sitting down under his own vine tree smoking a pipe of Irish-grown tobacco are not here today.
Dail Eireann, 23 June 1927, commenting on the failure of Fianna Fail to take up its seats.

O’Leary, John 1830-1907
Parnell may be the Uncrowned King of Ireland; he is not the infallible Pope of Rome
Address at Mullinashone, August 1885.

There are certain things a man must not do to save a nation … To cry in public.
In conversation with W.B. Yeats.

O’Neill, Hugh
2nd Earl of Tyrone 1550-1616
We have received your letter, and what we make out from it is that you offer nothing but sweet words and procrastination. For our part in the matter, whatever man would not be on our side and would not spend his efforts for the right, we take it that that is a man against us. For this reason, wherever you yourself are doing well, hurt us as much as you are able, and we shall hurt you to the best of our ability, with God’s will.
Letter to Sir John McCoughleyn, 6 February 1600.

O’Neill, Terence
Lord O’Neill of the Maine 1914-1990
I have tried to break the chains of ancient hatreds. I have been unable to realise during my period of office all that I has sought to achieve. Whether now it can be achieved in my life-time I do not know. But one day these things will be and must be achieved.
Television resignation address, 28 April 1969

Paisley, Rev. Ian b. 1926
You cannot talk peace until the enemy surrenders, and the enemy is the Roman Catholic Church.
The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 23 August 1969.

Mr Faulkner has sat down with the greatest IRA man of them all – Jack Lynch.
The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 29 January
d’, 23 August 1969.

Mr Faulkner has sat down with the greatest IRA man of them all – Jack Lynch.
The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 29 January
1972.

We do not accept the word of the slanderous bachelor who lives on the banks of the Tiber.
The Irish Times, ‘This Week They Said’, 31
December 1974.

Parnell, Charles Stewart 1846-1891
When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must show him in the streets of the town, you must show him in the fair and in the market-place, and even in the house of worship, by leaving him severely alone, by putting him into moral Coventry, by isolating him from his kind as if he was a leper of old – you must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed, and you may depend upon it that there will be no man so full of avarice, so lost to shame, as to dare the public opinion of all right-thinking men and to transgress your unwritten code of laws.
Speech at Ennis, 18 September 1880

We cannot under the British Constitution ask for more than the restitution of Grattan’s Parliament, but no man has the right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation. No man has the right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further’, and we have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland’s nationhood and we never shall.
Speech at Cork, 21 January 1885.

Ireland has been knocking at the English door long enough with kid gloves, and now she will knock with a mailed hand.
Speech in private during 1885 election at Liverpool,
recalled in Tuam Herald obituary by William O’Malley

Patrick, St ? – 490
I am Patrick, a sinner, the least learned of men, least of all the faithful, most worthless in the eyes of many
Confessions

I saw in a dream a man called Victor who seemed to be from Ireland and had many letters. He gave me one and I read the opening words, ‘The voice of the Irish’. And as I read the beginning I seemed at that moment to hear the voice of these people… They cried as with one voice,’ We beg you, holy youth, come and walk once more among us’
Confessions

Pearse, Patrick Henry 1879-1916
I have squandered the splendid years that the Lord God gave my youth / In attempting impossible things, deeming them alone worth the toil.
‘The Fool’

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace
Oration at graveside of O’Donovan Rossa, 1 August
1915.

There are in every generation those who shrink from the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make it with joy and laughter and these are the salt of the generations.
Robert Emmet Commemoration Address, Brookly,
New York, 2 March 1914.

Plunket, Lord William Conyngham 1764-1854
For my own part, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence and with the last drop of my blood, and when I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders of their country’s freedom.
Speech against the Act of Union, 1800

Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) b. 1920
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one…The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.
Address in Phoenix Park , Dublin, 29 September 1979

I end, dear brothers and sisters, beloved sons and daughters of Ireland by recalling how divine providence has used this island on the edge of Europe for the conversion of the European continent.
Address in Phoenix Park, Dublin, 29 September 1979.

On my knees, I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace. You may claim to seek justice. I, too, believe in justice, and seek justice. But violence only delays the day of justice. Further violence in Ireland will only drag down to ruin the land you claim to love and the values you claim to cherish.
Address at Killineer, Drogheda, Co. Louth, 29
September 1979.

Redmond, John 1856-1918
The one great principle of any settlement of the Irish question must be the recognition of the divine right of Irishmen, and Irishmen alone, to rule Ireland.
Speech in Chicago, 18 August 1886

I say that the coast of Ireland will be defended from foreign invasion by her armed sons, and for this purpose armed Nationalists in the South will only be too glad to join arms with the armed Protestants in the North.
Speech in the House of Commons, at outbreak of
Great War, 3 August 1914

Sarsfield, Patrick,
Earl of Lucan d. 1693
Sarsfield is the watchword – Sarsfield is the man.
At Ballyneety, 11 August 1690, quoted in Lenihan,
Limerick, its Histories and Antiquites 1866.

Change kings and we will fight it over again with you.
After Limerick, Attrib.

Would to God this was shed for Ireland.
Attrib. Last words, fighting for France at Landen.

Sheil, Richard Lalor 1791-1851
A body of armed Orangemen fall upon and put to death a defenceless Catholic; they are put on trial, and when they raise their eyes and look upon the jury as they are commanded to do so, they see twelve of their brethren in massacre.
Speech at Peneden Heath, Kent, October 1828.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 1792-1822
Oh, Ireland! thou emerald of the ocean, whose sons are generous and brave, whose daughters are honourable and frank and fair, thou art the isle on whose green shores I have desired to see the standard of liberty erected – a flag of fire – a beacon at which the world shall light the torch of Freedom!
An Address to the Irish People, 1812

Stephens, James 1825-1901
I was sure… that if another decade was allowed to pass without an endeavour of some kind or other to shake off an unjust yoke, the Irish people would sink into a lethargy from which it would be impossible …to arouse them.
‘Reminiscences’, in Weekly Freeman, 9 February 1884

Swift, Jonathan 1667-1745
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
Preface, The Battle of the Books

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
Letter to Alexander Pope, 29 September 1725

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Thoughts on Various Subjects.

Synge, John Millington 1871-1909
Anyone who has lived in real intimacy with the Irish peasantry will know that the wildest sayings and ideas in this play are tame indeed, compared with the fancies one may hear in any little hillside cabin in Geesala, or Carraroe, or Dingle Bay.
Introduction, The Playboy of the Western World.

Times, The early 19th century
Scum condensed of Irish bog, / Ruffian, coward, demagogue, / Boundless liar, base detractor, / Nurse of murders, treason’s factor.
Broadside against Daniel O’Connell

Tone, Theobald Wolfe 1763-1798
To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country – these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissension and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter – these were my means.
Autobiography

That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke, I knew; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found.
Speech at Court Martial, 10 November 1798

Walker, Rev. George 1618-1690
We were under so great necessity that we had nothing left unless we could prey upon one another: A certain fat gentleman conceived himself in the greatest danger, and fancying several of the garrison looked on him with a greedy eye, thought fit to hide himself for three days…Our necessity of eating the composition of tallow and starch, did not only nourish and support us, but was an infallible cure of the looseness.
A True History of the Siege of Londonderry in 1689.

White, Terence De Vere b. 1912
With their traditional love of freedom, the people of England encouraged and applauded revolution in France, Hungary and Italy, while hastening to suppress it in Ireland.
The Road of Excess

Wilde, Oscar 1854-1900
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular
‘The Critic as an Artist’

Yeats, William Butler 1865-1939
I write it out in a verse - / MacDonagh and MacBride / And Connolly and Pearse / Now and in time to be, / Wherever green is worn, / Are changed, changed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born.
‘Easter 1916’

Was it for this the wild geese spread / The grey wing upon every tide; / For this that all the blood was shed, / For this Edward Fitzgerald died, / And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, / All that delirium of the brave? / Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, / It’s with O’Leary in the grave.
‘September 1913’

Irish Quotations, Part 1

Famous Irish Quotationss

Edited by C. Ward

Should you wish to pursue a more detailed and comprehensive study of Irish Quotations we recommend the book of that title published by The O’Brien Press, Dublin, and compiled by Sean McMahon.