Quotes About Ireland

#1. I love Ireland. I'll always be 100pc Irish. I get really excited when I go to Sligo; it's my home.

Shane Filan

#2. I'll tell you what, it doesn't get more beautiful than the west of Ireland. Connemara and County Derry are quite stunning, really.

Matthew Goode

#3. Thomas Davis was a great man where poetry is concerned, and a better than Thomas Moore. All over Ireland his poetry is, and he would have done other things but that he died young.

Lady Gregory

#4. Sometimes, there's not an honest engagement of Ireland in Hollywood movies.

Ciaran Hinds

#5. On my Wikipedia page, it used to say I was born in Belfast, Ireland, then it said Belfast, Northern Ireland, and then it said Belfast, U.K. So there was a little war going on about where Belfast is located.

Adrian McKinty

#6. I am hugely proud to have played for Ireland.

Kenny Cunningham

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

Fiona Shaw

#8. I did go to cheder and was a bar mitzvah. We were members of an Orthodox synagogue, although we were not religious. My grandfather was Polish. He came to Ireland in the '30s.

Lenny Abrahamson

#9. My grandfather was a really, really tough no-nonsense factory worker who emigrated from Ireland in about 1900 to Bridgeport, Conn. He had a big effect on me. Those guys who took a great leap out into what they knew not were the ones who were the real stars, the real heroes.

Brian Dennehy

#10. If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European.

James Joyce

#11. 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.

Billy Connolly

#12. In Ireland we have a very old saying, When you can see the mountains it's going to rain and when you can't see the mountains it's raining.

David Allen

#13. If you grow up in Ireland and read books then you really are obliged to attempt your own some time. It is not exactly a choice. I still don't know if I am a writer. Believe me, there are days when I have my doubts.

Anne Enright

#14. I am an unusual Irishman. I'm probably Ireland's third most famous Jewish son.

Lenny Abrahamson

#15. I like the idea of people having romantic tendencies towards a place they don't know that well. I think it's great. Why not? My dad's view of New York is very similar to Americans' when they talk about Ireland.

Chris O'Dowd

#16. The EU is mired in deep structural crisis. Greece, Portugal and Ireland cannot survive inside the Euro.

Nigel Farage

#17. For far too long, the people of Northern Ireland have been denied an equal voice and equal representation in government. It is time for the Assembly and Executive to be up and running and the people's business to be addressed.

James T. Walsh

#18. Oh Ireland my first and only love
Where Christ and Caesar are hand in glove!

James Joyce

#19. When I was a senior in high school, I went to Ireland to study Irish Gaelic. And after one semester at Trinity College, I went way out to the west coast of Ireland and rented a little house by myself.

Rosemary Mahoney

#20. I must say that though other days may not be so bright, as we look toward the future, that the brightest days will continue to be those we spent with you here in Ireland.

John F. Kennedy

#21. I committed a cardinal sin as a kid. I never spoke, and my mother thought there was something seriously wrong with me. A silent child is regarded as a problem in Ireland, and I just read all the time.

Ken Bruen

#22. My husband hailed from Dagenham; he's an Essex boy. Me myself, I come from Derry City in the northwest of Ireland, so we love to get back.

Roma Downey

#23. Rain is also very difficult to film, particularly in Ireland because it's quite fine, so fine that the Irish don't even acknowledge that it exists.

Alan Parker

#24. The British leadership has acknowledged that it only became possible to end the violence in North Ireland when it stopped thinking of the [Irish Republican Army] as "a terrorist organization" and began treating it as a political actor with genuine grievances that deserved to be addressed.

Richard A. Falk

#25. For a tiny speck in the Atlantic, Ireland has made an outsize contribution to world literature. It's a legacy we can all be proud of, one that would take many pages (or indeed a whole library of books) to recount in full.

Rashers Tierney

#26. Australia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.

Thomas Keneally

#27. Look around at the countries of Europe, and you'll find that practically all of them have pasts that are just as tragic as Ireland's, yet the people seem able to find some creative way at moving into the future.

Jennifer Johnston

#28. Ireland unfree shall never be at peace

Patrick Pearse

#29. They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date.

John Hume

#30. There's never going to be a united Ireland, you know.

Seamus Heaney

#31. I'm involved in Northern Ireland Screen and have been for a long time, so I keep my eyes open and ears to the ground.

Kenneth Branagh

#32. Ireland's place north and south is in Europe and leading change in Europe.

Martin McGuinness

#33. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

Gerry Adams

#34. I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.

Anne Enright

#35. There is not a single injustice in Northern Ireland that is worth the loss of a single British soldier or a single Irish citizen either.

James Callaghan

#36. We recognised from the start that we couldn't just stay in the U.K. and Ireland markets. We have always looked to the products of the future. I've always said, 'If you don't innovate, you'll evaporate.'

Martin Naughton

#37. I believe a united Ireland is inevitable. I have never put a date on it.

Martin McGuinness

#38. I love L.A. I mean, in Ireland it just rains all the time, it's crap weather, so it's nice to go to L.A. where it's just sunshine every day, and then it's kinda easier to live a kinda healthy lifestyle. As opposed to New York, where you just drink all day.

Jack Reynor

#39. I don't do as many readings as I used to. There was a time when I was on the road a lot more, at home in Ireland, in Britain, in Canada and the States, a time when I had more stamina and appetite for it.

Seamus Heaney

#40. Stephen picks up on Armstrong's pier, and calls Kingstown pier "a disappointed bridge" (2.22). He's joking about the fact that Ireland wanted to be connected to continental Europe but ended up being extremely isolated.

James Joyce

#41. Generations will continue to meet the same fate unless the perennial oppressor-Britain-is removed, for she will unashamedly and mercilessly continue to maintain her occupation and economic exploitation of Ireland to judgment day, if she is not halted and ejected.

Bobby Sands

#42. When I started acting, there were parts in English that I thought I just had to try it out and go to another country. I did a film in Ireland. It was my first film abroad.

Carice Van Houten

#43. My ultimate dream would be for Derry City to become champions of an all-Ireland league in a united Ireland.

Martin McGuinness

#44. The poor old Duke [of Wellington]! What shall I say of him? To be sure he was born in Ireland, but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.

Daniel O'Connell

#45. I live in Ireland every day in a drizzly dream of a Dublin walk ...

John Geddes

#46. I know most of the photographers in Ireland. And if I don't want my photograph taken, they will leave me alone.

Saoirse Ronan

#47. My dad was a keen actor when he was young; my auntie is heavily involved in amateur dramatics back in Northern Ireland, and my great aunt was a woman called Greer Garson.

Jamie Dornan

#48. Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth ... The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.

Lydia M. Child

#49. So does nobody care about Ireland?"
"Nobody. Neither King Louis, nor King Billie, nor King James." He nodded thoughtfully. "The fate of Ireland will be decided by men not a single one of whom gives a damn about her. That is her tragedy.

Edward Rutherfurd

#50. I go to Ireland. Walk along an empty beach. When I do, I think of all the people who have walked there before, and will walk there again. Then it occurs to me nothing is forever. No matter how bad or how good, everything passes and moves on to another level.

Nora Roberts

#51. She said she arrived from Ireland after sliding off the curve of a rainbow with a dancing leprechaun and flew to America on the back of an owl.

Cathy Lamb

#52. In coming to that agreement, my party had a clear philosophy throughout. In Northern Ireland, we should have institutions that respected the differences of the people and that gave no victory to either side.

John Hume

#53. I have a theory about Ireland, being at the edge of Europe. For 1,000 years, people didn't know what was beyond. But we thought about it - a lot. And that 'beyond' became internalized in our psyche.

Conor McPherson

#54. Germany is not like Ireland or Denmark. It is a country where the domestic market counts much more than the external market.

Peter Bofinger

#55. Most of the first voluntary Irish immigrants came from Ulster in the north of Ireland. These immigrants were generally, although not exclusively, Protestants. They were known as "Scotch-Irish" or "Scots Irish,

Ryan Hackney

#56. Will you stay in Germany?'
'No. Somewhere different.'
'Like where?'
'Somewhere there was no war. Ireland maybe.

Audrey Magee

#57. I wanted to write about racism and xenophobia in 21st Century England and Ireland, but I wanted to do it in an exciting way so that I could reach more readers. Zombies seemed like a good way to do that.

Darren Shan

#58. According to a brand new report, alcohol abuse in Ireland is on the rise. Mainly because the guy who didn't drink now does.

Conan O'Brien

#59. I pray. I try to find space to process with a walk on the beach, a hike in the hills. Nature is restorative. I also try not to overreact. I grew up in Ireland, and we are big tea drinkers, and I think it's less about the tea itself and more about the ritual and the moment to prepare.

Roma Downey

#60. I find that I sent wolves not shepherds to govern Ireland, for they have left me nothing but ashes and carcasses to reign over!

Elizabeth I

#61. 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

#62. Stand-up came naturally to me because people in Ireland talk. But that's not talking on panel shows; it is structured fun. It reminds me of some tragic aunt clapping her hands and bouncing into a room and announcing we should all play games ... and if we don't we are all a rotten spoilsport.

Dylan Moran

#63. I was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland and it is still home to me. My writing has taken me all over the world, but this is the place I come back to and the place where I find it easiest to write.

Michael Scott

#64. There are many things we can do with Scotland and, indeed, with others which would be hugely beneficial to both Scotland and to Ireland, so I'm absolutely up for all of that.

Martin McGuinness

#65. We may have bad weather in Ireland, but the sun shines in the hearts of the people and that keeps us all warm.

Marianne Williamson

#66. I have lived in Ireland, visited all my life, and when I fight, I represent Ireland.

Tyson Fury

#67. The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent.

Hugh Leonard

#68. I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots ... I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland. That is my background and always will be.

Rory McIlroy

#69. Yes ... I miss that everyone in Ireland tries to knock some humour out of every situation. I don't think I appreciated that. It's unique to Ireland.

Deirdre O'Kane

#70. Growing up in Ireland, there never seemed to be the notion that children should be seen and not heard. We all looked forward to mealtimes when we'd sit around the table and talk about our days. Storytelling and long, rambling conversations were considered good things.

Maeve Binchy

#71. Famines occur under a colonial administration, like the British Raj in India or for that matter in Ireland, or under military dictators in one country after another, like Somalia and Ethiopia, or in one-party states like the Soviet Union and China.

Amartya Sen

#72. Unification is less important than the fact Ireland is now conflict-free.

James Nesbitt

#73. My father was from Northern Ireland, and coming from somewhere like that, your faith defines you. That's something we don't really understand outside Northern Ireland, but because of my parents and grandparents, I've experienced it.

Anna Maxwell Martin

#74. The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live.

Frank McCourt

#75. I was brought up in the countryside in Ireland and would go bonkers if I couldn't escape the city. I like to wake and hear birds tweeting, not the low drone of traffic.

Mariella Frostrup

#76. I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that 'all that I am,' I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God.

Saint Patrick

#77. I'm 100% Celt. In fact, I'm directly related to the progenitor of the high kings of Ireland, Niall of the Nine Hostages.

Brian Cox

#78. It's strange coming back to Northern Ireland, but it feels like a home away from home.

Sean Bean

#79. I am an atheist. I was born a Catholic, but after I had traveled to Northern Ireland with some Catholic friends, and we had a horrible experience with the English Protestant police, I lost all taste for formal religion.

Guy Laliberte

#80. You can get on with your job. I'm going to get on with mine. And mine is to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland, that's what they expect from me and I'm not going to be deflected by interesting academic or media speculation or attempts to take the whole debate back.

Peter Hain

#81. The fierce pulsation of resurgent pride that disclaims servitude may one day cease to throb in the heart of Ireland - but the heart of Ireland will that day be dead. While Ireland lives, the brain and the brawn of her manhood will strive to destroy the last vestige of British rule in her territory

Thomas MacDonagh

#82. All the way through, we have been willing to take risks, provided at the end of it we can get a decent lasting settlement in Northern Ireland

Tony Blair

#83. My great-grandfather, Peter O'Hara, was born in Ireland, I believe, in County Clare. His father, my great-great-grandfather, had actually come to America a generation before when times were very bad in Ireland. He worked in the Pennsylvania area and did well with horses and farming.

Kelli O'Hara

#84. It did not seem to me that prejudice, poverty, discrimination, repression and racism were confined to the North of Ireland. I could see them everywhere I spoke and still cannot comprehend the mentality that argues that I should have pretended not to see them, because it wasn't my business.

Bernadette Devlin

#85. I've never put Northern Ireland into a novel because it's not my territory. I come from the South, so my imaginative territory is very much the Republic of Ireland rather than the North. Even though, if I wrote a novel about the North, it might sell more.

Colm Toibin

#86. No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.

W.E.B. Du Bois

#87. I nominate the Reverend Ian Paisley for the position of First Minister of northern Ireland

Gerry Adams

#88. Only the Irish working class remains as the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.

James Connolly

#89. History, well taught, is the demythologising of the past ... Take any important issue of our time - Northern Ireland, Nuclear Disarmament, Race, The Welfare State, South Africa - and it becomes impossible to seriously confront any of them without understanding their historical background.

Alan Bullock

#90. My father left Ireland because he did not want to muck horse manure for the rest of his life, and he wanted to come to New York.

Denis Leary

#91. Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'

W.E.B. Du Bois

#92. I remember my first show was a live TV show in Ireland, and I was just petrified. It was horrific.

Caroline Corr

#93. More Irishmen died fighting for Britain in World War I than died fighting against her in all of Ireland's bids for independence combined.

David Frum

#94. Colombians have been dealing with cocaine since your ancestors were running around Ireland with their bodies painted blue," Kingsley

Robert B. Parker

#95. William Congreve is the only sophisticated playwright England has produced; and like Shaw, Sheridan, and Wilde, his nearest rivals, he was brought up in Ireland.

Kenneth Tynan

#96. 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

#97. My first record was made in Termonfeckin, which is a small town on the north-east coast of Ireland. I had been in London, but it didn't click. So, at home, I didn't think about making something, just whether something could be made. There was no grand plan.

James Vincent McMorrow

#98. 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

#99. Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.

William Butler Yeats

#100. When I went to the all-Ireland final - Kerry against Dublin - I couldn't get away for an hour and a half with people coming up and wishing me all the best. Not one of them said, 'Martin, when did you leave the IRA?' But every one of them knew I was in the IRA at one stage.

Martin McGuinness