Quotes & Sayings About Irish

Consider Ireland ... You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question. — Benjamin Disraeli

For the multiculturalist, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are prohibited, Italians and Irish get a little respect, blacks are good, native Americans are even better. The further away we go, the more they deserve respect. This is a kind of inverted, patronising respect that puts everyone at a distance. — Slavoj Zizek

I was the adoring son of a Welsh-Irish father, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a Catholic Knight of Columbus who was a blue-collar, trade union organizer and, not surprisingly, a fervid Nixon-hater. — Bob Gunton

I'm Irish and Cherokee Indian. I can't faint. — Lynn Collins

I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I'm English. — Daniel Radcliffe

The Irish are the only men who know how to cry for the dirty polluted blood of all the world. — Norman Mailer

Look at every territorial dispute you care to mention. Northern Ireland, for instance." "Religion in that case," Jamie ventured. "Not just. Religion was the badge of identity, but it wasn't really about whether you went to Mass or to a tub-thumping Protestant chapel. It was a result of the movement of people. The Protestant planters - many of them Scots - replaced the native Irish, remember? Movement of people again. — Alexander McCall Smith

I published my first book in 1982 - a collection of Irish folklore called Irish Folk & Fairy Tales. It is still in print today. My first young adult book was published a couple of years later, and I've been writing in both genres ever since. — Michael Scott

My biggest poetic influences are probably 20th-century British and Irish poets. So I suppose I'm always listening for the music I associate with that poetry, the telling images, the brevity. I want to hear it in my own work as well as in the poetry I read. However, I think I'm generally more forgiving of other poets than myself. — David Starkey

I had a very happy childhood, which is unsuitable if you're going to be an Irish writer. — Maeve Binchy

My Irish Catholic mother loved romantic movies, provided they ended with a kiss before the screen went dark. If things went any further than that, she'd complain, Why can't they leave something to the imagination? I sort of subscribe to her philosophy when it comes to writing sex. — Catherine Brady

I read mostly Irish, African, Japanese, South American, and African writers. You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style. — Chris Abani

I was for two years a pupil at the Model School in Fort street which was then conducted upon the Irish national system, and if any special religious instruction was given in connection with that system, I do not recollect it. — Edmund Barton

Guard for me my eyes, Jesus, Son of Mary, lest seeing others' wealth make me covetous. Guard for me my ears, lest they harken to slander, lest they listen to folly in the sinful world. Guard for me my heart, O Christ, in Thy love, lest I ponder wretchedly the desire of any iniquity. Guard for me my hands, that they be not stretched out for quarreling, or practice shameful idleness. Guard for me my feet upon the gentle earth. . . . lest they be bent on profitless errands. Amen. - ANCIENT IRISH PRAYER — David P. Gushee

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy. — Fiona Shaw

Ghost?" St. Vincent shot him an incredulous glance. "Christ. You're not serious, are you?"
"I'm a Gypsy," Cam replied matter-of-factly. "Of course I believe in ghosts."
"Only half Gypsy. Which led me to assume that the rest of you was at least marginally sane and rational."
"The other half is Irish," Cam said a touch apologetically.
"Christ," St. Vincent said again, shaking his head as he strode away. — Lisa Kleypas

Prejudice in this country is like chapters in a book. Chapter One: Hating the Africans and Indians. Chapter Two: Don't forget the Irish. Chapter Three: Polish jokes." ... "Hispanics? Latinos? Whatever you call us? Maybe we're Chapter Fifteen or Sixteen on the East Coast, but we're the preface in the West. — Emilie Richards

Well, Chrissy, I'm afraid your grandmother's Irish Alzheimer's has gotten quite advanced - she's forgotten everything but her grudges. — J. Courtney Sullivan

The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea. — James Joyce

A lot of Irish people perform. They perform in drawing rooms. They sing songs and they play piano. — Fiona Shaw

Irish girls, red hair,' I replied, remembering a picture of them from Mrs. Casnoff's 'People Who Want to Kill Us All' lecture at Hex Hall last year. — Rachel Hawkins

The Irish job was something that had to be sorted out. — Jack Charlton

Be it in the rough-and-tumble world of inner-city politics or the bare-knuckle boxing ring, the Irish rightly earned their fightin' moniker. — Rashers Tierney

Food cost rather than the absolute absence of food can often be the key factor in shortages and possible starvation. During the height of the Irish Potato Famine in 1845, Ireland was actually exporting food to England. The peasants starved because they could not afford to buy food at the local prices, enhanced by the loss of the potato crop. There was enough food, in absolute terms, to keep everyone alive; they died because they had no money to buy it. — Peter Wadhams

There can be no such things as an Irish nationalist accepting the loyalist veto and partition. You cannot claim to be an Irish nationalist if you consent to an internal six county settlement and if you are willing to negotiate the state of Irish society with a foreign government. — Gerry Adams

In a move that will remain in Irish annals as a stigma comparable to the potato famine, the Dublin government succumbed to ECB blackmail: make the German creditors of Ireland's commercial banks whole, even a bank that was closed down and thus no longer systemically important for Ireland's financial sector, or else. — Yanis Varoufakis

Well, they may not be civilized, but they certainly are confident - and this confidence is one of the open-handed pleasures of early Irish literature. — Thomas Cahill

White, is not a race, it is a color, European, is not a race, it is a place named after the goddess Europa. Caucasian, is not a race, it is a place and mountain range. Gentile, is not a race, it is a biblical name that was given to describe Aryans as non-Jews. Aryan is the biological correct name of our race! Aryan is who we are by blood and the genetic source of our being and beginning. All the numerous names, German, French, Irish, Scotch, Polish, Italian, Norwegian and on and on are simply the many tribal names of the Aryan people. — Ron McVan

I love my heritage! I have my mother, who is an Irish-Italian, and my father who is African, so I have the taste buds of an Italian and the spice of an African. — Alicia Keys

Blue grass was the outgrowth of Irish music. As a matter of fact a lot the tunes, a lot of the melodies and the jigs ... have different names but are actually the same tunes. — Keith Getty

Hindered characters / seldom have mothers / in Irish stories, but they all have grandmothers. — Marianne Moore

But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible. — Anne McCaffrey

The English imposed their language on Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and they weren't terribly nice about it. — Howard Tomb

All good things originate with the Creator God, he'd been taught, and the Song of Life was no exception. — Sandi Layne

Music began playing and a woman walked into the room and stood beside a small band. She was dressed in a red Irish costume that hung to her ankles and it was laced at the bodice with a black cord. After giving a nod to the band, she sang a few Irish songs. But one song seemed to stand out to Rick and he stopped eating and listened.
Sure a little bit of Heaven fell from out the sky one day and it nestled on the ocean in a spot so far away. When the angels found it, sure it looked so sweet and fair, they said, "Suppose we leave it for it looks so peaceful there."
So they sprinkled it with stardust just to make the shamrocks grow. 'Tis the only place you'll find them no matter where you go. Then they dotted it with silver to make its lakes so grand and when they had it finished, sure they called it Ireland. — Linda Weaver Clarke

It is St. Patrick's Day. And here in Scranton, that is a huge deal. It is the closest that the Irish will ever get to Christmas. — Michael Scott

I don't like medicine. There's an old Irish proverb that goes, "If I knew where I was going to die, I wouldn't go there." I suspect that I'm going to die in a hospital, so every time I go past one, I drive really quickly to get away from those things. So I spend a lot of money on health: gyms, I go to naturopaths, acupuncturists; anybody else who's almost the alternative to medicine. I think by the time you need medicine, it's too late. That's my belief. — Robert Kiyosaki

My family, they're story tellers. My mom is Irish, and my dad is Italian. In my family, we weren't allowed to watch TV while we ate - we had to sit around the table and tell stories about our day. — Meg Cabot

On St. Patrick's Day, the traditional Irish family would rise early and find a solitary sprig of shamrock to put on their somber Sunday best. Then they'd spend the morning in church listening to sermons about how thankful they should be that St. Patrick saved such a bunch of ungrateful sinners. Nobody wore green clothing as it was considered an unlucky color not suitable for church. — Rashers Tierney

My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater. — Ellen Pompeo

I don't have any great love for Chicago. What the hell, a childhood around Douglas Park isn't very memorable. I remember the street fights and how you were afraid to cross the bridge 'cause the Irish kid on the other side would beat your head in. I left Chicago a long time ago. — Benny Goodman

I'm Irish as hell: Kelly on one side, Shanley on the other. My father had been born on a farm in the Irish Midlands. He and his brothers had been shepherds there, cattle and sheep, back in the early 1920s. I grew up surrounded by brogues and Irish music, but stayed away from the old country till I was over 40. I just couldn't own being Irish. — John Patrick Shanley

You'll win her with ya Irish charm and green eyes, so ya will. Now drink up ya coffee and stop whining like a baby. This girl's gonna have a fantastic night tomorrow. She's gonna worship da ground ya c**k drags on. — JoAnne Kenrick

You're a good Irishman, right?" When Butch nodded, V said, "Irish, Irish ... let me think. Yeah ... " Vishous's eyes sobered, and in a voice that cracked, he said, "May the road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rains fall soft upon your fields. And ... my dearest friend ... until we meet again may the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand. — J.R. Ward

Irish demographics reveal two startling facts: There are around 70 million people worldwide who claim Irish descent, and Ireland today has barely half the population that it had 160 years ago, a decline unmatched in the modern world. These facts are explained and connected by the undeniable social reality of nineteenth-century Ireland - emigration. — Ryan Hackney

It's so tough to get movies made in Ireland anymore. A whole generation of Irish filmmakers doesn't have the resources to get a movie made. — Ciaran Hinds

Wehehehehell, if it isn't Ollie-Ollie-oxidant-free ... "
You can take ... all the tea in China ... put it in a big brown ... bag for me.
He's as sweet as tupelo honey; he's an angel of the first degree.
Men with insight ... men in granite ... knights in armor bent on ... chivalry.
He's as sweet as ... tupelo honey; just like honey, baby ... from the bee."
=> For those who read and liked "When Irish eyes are sparkling"
Can i have a musician here? — Tom Collins

Irish-sparkle-fish, — Anne Eliot

Typhus appeared in the winter of 1846. The Irish called it the black fever because it made victims' faces swollen and dark. It was incredibly contagious, spread by lice, which were everywhere. Many people lived in one-room cottages, humans and animals all huddled together, and there was no way to avoid lice jumping from person to person. The typhus bacteria also traveled in louse feces, which formed an invisible dust in the air. Anyone who touched an infected person, or even an infected person's clothes, could become the disease's next victim. Typhus was the supreme killer of the famine; in the winter of 1847, thousands of people died of it every week. Another — Ryan Hackney

One way to see the constructed nature of reality is to notice how the definitions of different "races" change historically, by including groups at one time that were excluded in another. The Irish, for example, were long considered by the dominant white Anglo-Saxon Protestants of England and the United States to be members of a nonwhite "race", as were Italians, Jews, and people from a number of Eastern European countries. As such, immigrants from these groups to England and the United States were excluded and subjugated and exploited in much the same way that blacks were. — Allan G. Johnson

We're a superstitious breed, we Irish, and wise enough to build around a faerie hill without disturbing it, to leave a stone dance where it stands. And to keep back from a place where the dark still thrums. — Nora Roberts

But as his father used to say when he had a few drinks taken, you couldn't expect bloody miracles when you were talking about God. — Joseph O'Connor

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

Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.' — Adrian McKinty

I'm from durable stock. I'm made to work. I'm Irish. — Mary McCormack

I am Michael, and I am part English, Irish, German, and Scottish, sort of a virtual United Nations. — Michael Scott

There is a feel about Galway you can wear around your shoulders like a cloak. It hangs in the air with its dampness; it walks the cobblestone streets and stands in the doorways of its gray stone buildings. It blows in with the mist from the Atlantic and lingers incessantly at every corner. I have never been able to walk the streets of Galway without feeling some unnamed presence accompanying me. — Claire Fullerton

My father's parents were Irish. Only a year before my father died, he and I went back to Ireland for a week to look at the old homestead. — John C. Hawkes

I thought the butler always did it," someone remarked under their breath. — Carlene O'Connor

Jesus Christ ... he was not Omega's son. Was he?
"No." V said. "You are not. He just wants to believe you are. And he wants you to think you are. But that doesn't make it true."
There was a long silence. Then Rhage's hand landed on Butch's shoulder. "Besides, you don't look a thing like him. I mean ... hello? You are this beefy Irish white boy. He's like ... bus exhaust or some shit."
Butch glanced over at Hollywood. "You're sick, you know that?"
"Yeah, but you love me, right? Come on, I know you feel me. — J.R. Ward

Our atheism family tradition is traced to a - I don't know if it was great-great or a great-great-great grandmother who was a poor Irish-American woman in the 1880s in western Montana. — Barbara Ehrenreich

The Danes and the Irish have a great simpatico, that's for sure. — Pierce Brosnan

My influences are with Irish music, church music and classical music, — Enya

What's fascinating is where they come from in the world. People in Bangladesh, a chap in a fire-base in Tikrit in Iraq. Chap in an Irish pub in Dublin. And lovely to think this literary network - or rather network of readers - is well spread out. — John Gimlette

When I was 19, I thought I wanted to be an English civil servant. It was the most exotic thing at the time - can you imagine, in the middle of the IRA bombing campaigns? I saw an ad inviting Irish applicants for an induction course, so I signed up. — Colm Toibin

Towns like Launceston, Longford, Evandale and other current-day hubs of poppy production in north and central Tasmania had been settled by tens of thousands of British and Irish convicts transported here in the early 19th century as a cheap alternative to prisons in the British Isles. They were followed by thousands of so-called free settlers, who built communities with main streets still lined by two- and three-story pink sandstone buildings. — Anonymous

I believe that the interior life is the same for all of us. And because they're steeped in faith, Irish-American Catholics are a people who have a language for the examined life. — Alice McDermott

It's almost like that's the definition of being American: You love becoming Irish for a day, or becoming Italian ... Or becoming a Negro for four years. — Josh Alan Friedman

The three things Aristotle couldn't understand: the work of the bees, the coming and going of the tide, and the mind of a woman. - Irish Triad — Dorien Kelly

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. — Bobby Sands

In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better. — C.E. Murphy

At Leeds I've tried to concentrate on my club form, but you get caught up in all the World Cup fever once you come back to Ireland and see all the Irish boys again. — Robbie Keane

They were empowered and fulfilled. They dated occasionally but were just as happy living the feminist dream of a professional woman not answerable to any man. Do what they wanted to, go where they wanted to and spend indecent amount of money on clothes and shoes, it was all good. There were not slaves to diets, shaving hairy legs, waxing eyebrows, dying their roots, endless showers, applying tons of make-up and trying to be domestic goddesses. They could slum around in leisure suits and runners reading Cosmo with a fag in their mouth and a cup of coffee in their hands. There could be slummy mummies or tidy queens or takeaway junkies it all depended on their daily rota and social live. Good, freedom was definitely good. One husband in a lifetime was enough for them — Annette J. Dunlea

Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the normal course of things die before us - grandparents, parents, teachers, and older friends. Heartlessness and amnesia seem to go together. But history gives contradictory signals about the value of remembering in the much longer span of a collective history. There is simply too much injustice in the world. And too much remembering (of ancient grievances: Serbs, Irish) embitters. To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it is necessary that memory be faulty and limited. If the goal is having some space in which to live one's own life, then it is desirable that the account of specific injustices dissolve into a more general understanding that human beings everywhere do terrible things to one another. * * * P — Susan Sontag

Irish has not so much a common formula as a common character. — Lew Bryson

For a man to come right out and say he does not believe in the Old Testament, I think many Catholics across the nation as well as the world are offended by Bill O'Reilly claiming he's an Irish Catholic. — Stephen Bennett

Lost: Heartbeat. Last seen being chased away by an Irishman's shameless grin. Reward if returned. — Whitney K.E.

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

I was freelancing for years in Cork and around. I also wrote freelance pieces for 'The Irish Times.' — Kevin Barry

This is the ultimate narcissistic white-girl game. I would picture how I would handle the attack differently. Or the same. Inevitably, I'd think about my own death, which next to staring at your face in a magnifying mirror is probably the worst thing you can do for yourself. The ambulance-chasing aspect combined with the Monday-morning quarterbacking of it all is the luxury afforded to those of us left untouched by trauma. Sometimes I would use these tragedy-porn shows to unlock deep feelings or cut through the numbness. I would read terrible stories to punish myself for my lucky life. Some real deep Irish Catholic shit. Either way, it was all gross and all bad for my health. — Amy Poehler

Scurvy became a problem. This disease comes from a deficiency of vitamin C, and it causes the victim's connective tissue to break down. The Irish called scurvy black leg, because it made the blood vessels under the skin burst, giving a victim's limbs a black appearance. The cure for scurvy is fresh food - meat, vegetables, or fruit - none of which was available to the poor in Ireland. There — Ryan Hackney

Let justice be done tho the heavens fall. — Michael Davitt

Where are you getting your material - Portnoy's Complaint?" "What does an Irish lass named Monaghan know from Portnoy and afikomens? I imagine you reading James Joyce and drinking — Laura Lippman

Dead men hear no tales; posthumous fame is an Irish bull. — Israel Zangwill

Irish was a man of parts even if some of them didn't work too well. — Angela Carter

President Obama told the Irish people that America will always stand by them, to which Israel laughed. — Jay Leno

Ah, kiss me, love, and miss me, love,
and dry your bitter tears. (Irish Pub Song) — Nora Roberts

I am a war man in the day of war, but I am a peace man in the day of peace. — Michael Collins

Growing up, I was brought up around Irish music, Irish traditions. — Tyson Fury

Ireland is a fruitful mother of genius, but a barren nurse. — John Boyle O'Reilly

The Irish Republic must be made a word to conjure with - a rallying point for the disaffected, a haven for the oppressed, a point of departure for the socialist, enthusiastic in the cause of human freedom. — James Connolly

What makes a man's 80 year-old Irish uncle skip like a little boy? Me Father is very fond of me! — John Ortberg Jr.

But no parties could live under such labels as Petitioners and Abhorrers. Instead of naming themselves they named each other. The term "Whig" had described a sour, bigoted, canting, money-grubbing Scots Presbyterian. Irish Papist bandits ravaging estates and manor-houses had been called "Tories." Neither — Winston S. Churchill

I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full. — Lord Dunsany

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be. — Kenneth Branagh

She'd made life poignant for the Irish. The terror she inspired gave peace its serenity; the pain she caused gave health its lustre; her failure to love made me grateful for my ability to do so, and I realized, far too late, that though I never did or could have loved her as she might have wished, I should have loved her more. — Kevin Hearne

I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood. — William Devane

As the seasons age us
I close my eyes and wish for snow
Alas the Irish seasons been foretold
For Spring will dawn and I will go
Into another season Jack Frost cold.
And when its here, I wish for night
As childhood memories flash right by
To see the birds in humble flight
I wish for Summer with a sigh
And on I go to months so sweet
Dawns sweet chorus and sunbeams bright
I yearn for Autumn leaves under feet
Yet now I dream of Winters night
As Auld Lang Syne rings in New Year
Alas! I'm one year older as Spring draws near. — Michelle Geaney

In Chicago, you can't swing a cat without hitting an Irish pub (and angering the cat), but McAnally's place stands out from the crowd. — Jim Butcher

Finally, Colin Farrell showed up on my doorstep, only he wasn't Colin Farrell - he was just this Irish kid who had read the script and wanted to do it. — Robert Towne