Irish Immigrant Quotes & Sayings

For the Irish, life is a matter of perpetual grievance. We remember the Famine, but forget the Draft Riots. We seal off our neighborhoods to strangers, but allow our own priests to victimize our own children. We worship violence and we enslave ourselves to alcohol, we lie and steal and kill without conscience for generations at a time. But it's all right in the end, and do you know why? Because we don't tolerate lust. — Mary Gordon

Many immigrant groups have faced hostility. The Irish did in their time. Jews did. Italians did - and now, Muslim immigrants. — Tom Gjelten

In 1903, Sir James Power, Lord Mayor of Dublin, was surprised to note on a transatlantic trip that the typical Irish immigrant in America was now "not merely a hewer of wood and a drawer of water." In fact, he remarked that they are "found occupying...respectable positions in society. — Rashers Tierney

Second-generation Hispanics marry non-Hispanics at a higher rate than second-generation Irish or Italians. Second-generation Hispanics' English language capability rates are higher than previous immigrant groups'. — Jeb Bush

For decades Southie had been immigrant Irish against the world, fighting first a losing battle againsnt shameful discrimination from the Yankee merchhants who had run Boston for centuries and then another one against mindless bureaucrats and an obdurate federal judge who imposed school busing on the "town" that hated outsiders to begin with. Both clashes were the kind of righteous fight that left residents the way they liked to be: bloodied but unbowed. The shared battles reaffirmed a view of life: never trust outsiders and never forget where you come from. — Dick Lehr & Gerard O'Neill

Margaret looked at the ring on her finger. "Gran gave me this before we boarded the ship. It's the most special thing in the world to me. I'll never take it off, Hanna. No matter how hungry I am. — Meredith Jaeger

The most important obstacle to speed and ease of assimilation, however, is race. In the nineteenth century, swarthy Jews, "black" Irish, and Italian "guineas" - a not so subtle euphemism borrowed from the African country of Guinea - were all seen as what we today call "people of color." These immigrants terrified lighter-skinned native-born Americans, who accepted the newcomers as "white" only when they - actually, their descendants - began to earn middle-class incomes. Of course, skin color does not affect an immigrant's ability to absorb American culture. But color can play a large part in hindering economic and social assimilation: today's black newcomers, from the Caribbean and elsewhere, are often treated as part of the African-American population, with all the associated disadvantages. — Tamar Jacoby

'Lollipop Opera' is the backdrop to Finsbury Park. A place that is very thriving, interracial and lot of music stores, Greek, Turkish, all sorts of immigrant music. It's utter Englishness. It blends the Jamaicans, the Irish. It's like what Jim Reeves did with American country music. — John Lydon

In life, we all have a cross to bear and a unique story to tell. We just hope that someone will take the time to listen. — Greg McVicker

Scarlett O'Hara's father, Thomas, is an Irish immigrant who names his plantation Tara, after the home of the High Kings in Ireland. In an appealing nod to the "luck of the Irish," we read that Thomas O'Hara won his lands in a card game! — Rashers Tierney

Humor has historically been tied to the mores of the day. The Yellow Kid was predicated on what people thought was funny about the immigrant Irish. When you're different in a society, you're funny. — Will Eisner