Quotes About Being Irish

#1. I find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this.

Anne Enright

#2. Being Irish and a citizen of the world, has made me truly appreciate Irish culture, music and history. Whether you're first, second generation Irish or even with no connection to Ireland, you should visit in 2013 for a unique experience.

Liam Neeson

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

Iris Murdoch

#4. That's how vile i am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a bloody Scot, that's how bloody awful it is being Irish!

Iris Murdoch

#5. Being Irish was a big thing for me, particularly growing up in Chicago.

Lara Flynn Boyle

#6. Being Irish-American myself, Irish-American material is readily at hand to me.

Alice McDermott

#7. The problem with being Irish ... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.

Roddy Doyle

#8. The way I see it is that all the ol' guff about being Irish is a kind of nonsense. I mean, I couldn't be anything else no matter what I tried to be. I couldn't be Chinese or Japanese.

John McGahern

#9. When I was 14, I almost had a big green leprechaun tattooed on my forearm. Thank God I didn't - it would have been a nightmare to cover up as an actor. I went with a group of mates and, being Irish, thought a leprechaun would be perfect.

Jonas Armstrong

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

Billy Conn

#11. Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me.

Colin Farrell

#12. I'm hugely proud of being Irish. And I don't even know what that means. I just know that it's true.

Domhnall Gleeson

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

W.B.Yeats

#14. I don't feel I have to defend myself for being English or for being Irish, because, in a way, I don't feel either. And, in another way, of course, I'm both.

Martin McDonagh

#15. Pride should be reserved for something you achieve or obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill ... it's a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn't say I'm proud to be 5'11; I'm proud to have a pre-disposition for colon cancer.

George Carlin

#16. I kind of have an interest in all history. And I suspect it comes from being Irish - we like stories, we like telling stories, which makes a lot of us lean towards being writers or actors or directors.

Colm Meaney

#17. I think the genetics of being Irish are that you sort of prefer when it's rainy and cloudy. It's just genetic.

Kate Flannery

#18. Being Irish means you belong to the clan. It's what you feel. They feel Irish.

Martin Naughton

#19. What's the use of being Irish if the world doesn't break your heart?

John F. Kennedy

#20. Being Irish, I always had this love of words.

Kenneth Branagh

#21. With such riches as I have in life, you're always nervous. Being Irish, you're waiting for something to knock it sideways.

Pierce Brosnan

#22. There's no sense to being Irish unless you know the world's going to break your heart.

Thomas Adcock

#23. I don't buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay.

John Boyne

#24. I was born in the island of Ireland. I have Irish traits in me - we don't all have the traits of what came from Scotland, there is the celtic factor ... and I am an Irishman because you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman

Ian Paisley

#25. No one would ever cast me as an aristocrat. I think the big thing about being an Irish artist is access to melancholy. Especially the American Irish. The availability of loss, some kind of pain, is an important part of who we are. I think my Irishness gave me that.

Brian Dennehy

#26. Perhaps he found it strange being accompanied by a Chinese-Nigerian arms trafficking pirate, but the Irish priest had just followed me silently on board the covert government transport.

Dayo Ntwari

#27. I come as one package deal. An Irish lesbian who wakes up every day and goes to work. And I don't spend a lot of time thinking about being 'the first this' or 'the first that' because it would take up space in my brain.

Christine Quinn

#28. He was a shadow of the man that once intimidated us out of our home, a shell of a human being, a fragment of a father.

David Louden

#29. I remember as a kid being asked if I was Jewish or Irish. I said, like the glib little 15-year-old I was, 'You can be both.' Feeling very pleased with myself. Before they smacked me.

Lenny Abrahamson

#30. "Uisce Beatha" is a compounded distilled spirit being drawn on aromatics, and the Irish sort is particularly distinguished for its pleasant and mild flavour.

Samuel Johnson

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

Mary Robinson

#32. I feel myself part of something. Not only being part of a community but part of an actual moment and a movement of Irish writing and art. That sense of being part of the whole thing is the deepest joy.

Seamus Heaney

#33. I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I'm English.

Daniel Radcliffe

#34. Now, Benny was no eejit. He wasn't expecting the Tunisian nationals to be Irish. What he did expect was darkish people with Irishy personalities.
That was not what he got.
The Tunisians weren't interested in conforming to Benny's preconceptions. They stubbornly insisted on being themselves.

Eoin Colfer

#35. The films that I've made with my company Irish DreamTime are close to my heart. 'The Greatest' being one of them, and 'Evelyn' being another.

Pierce Brosnan

#36. Irish artists have a tradition of being very heavily engaged in what is happening in their own society. So it was important that they had a voice.

Sinead O'Connor

#37. As far as Irish writers being great, I think the fact that there have been two languages in Ireland for a very long time; there has obviously been a shared energy between those two languages.

Garry Hynes

#38. My heart fluttered on Kaylee's behalf. Being called lovely in an Irish accent ... well that's swoonworthy stuff, take my word for it.

Katrina Abbott

#39. Lost: Heartbeat. Last seen being chased away by an Irishman's shameless grin. Reward if returned.

Whitney K.E.

#40. But after being fired at once or twice, The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.

Robert Byron

#41. Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it.

Conor Cruise O'Brien

#42. 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

#43. Irish? In truth I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual country. It is being at odds withother nationalities, having quite different philosophy about pleasure, about punishment, about life, and about death. At least it does not leave one pusillanimous.

Edna O'Brien

#44. Atty's eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled!

Tricia Murphy

#45. Katie shook her head in dismay. "I thought being poor was the worst thing that could happen to a girl."
"No, Katie," the countess said in a clear voice. "The worst thing is to be in love with one man and have to marry another."
Katie O'Reilly to the Countess of Marbury in "Titanic Rhapsody

Jina Bacarr

#46. I went to a Catholic University and there's something about being a Catholic-American. You know, St. Patrick's Day is, I'm Irish-Catholic. There's alcoholism in my family. It's like I've got to be Catholic, right?

Jim Gaffigan

#47. My old manager of the Irish National Theatre said 'Don't worry about being a star, just worry about being a working actor. Just keep working.' I think that's really good advice.

Colm Meaney

#48. There are hundreds of thousands of Scots who acknowledge English, Irish or Welsh parts of their very being. Lives and destinies are similarly intertwined in Catalonia and Spain, in Ukraine and Russia.

Michael Ignatieff

#49. There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.

Paul Theroux

#50. For me, being Catholic was who I was and who I am, just like I'm Irish and Slovak. It's just so ingrained in us.

Regina Brett