Quotes About The Irish Famine

#1. Hardly any famine affects more than 5 percent, almost never more than 10 percent, of the population. The largest proportion of a population affected was the Irish famine of the 1840s, which came close to 10 percent over a number of years.

Amartya Sen

#2. The typical Irish peasant ate about 10 pounds of potatoes each day and soon towered in physical size over their rural English equivalents who mainly ate bread.

Rashers Tierney

#3. There is no way in which we can retrospectively erase the Treaty of Vienna or the Great Irish Famine. It is a peculiar feature of human actions that, once performed, they can never be recuperated. What is true of the past will always be true of it.

Terry Eagleton

#4. The glory of the old Irish nation, which in our hour will grow young and strong again. Should we fail, the country will not be worth more than it is now. The sword of famine is less sparing than the bayonet of the soldier.

Thomas Francis Meagher

#5. The people under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies.

Martin Van Buren

#6. In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.

Edna O'Brien

#7. The writer has to take risks and go somewhere full of mystery and possibility for the novel to deepen over the years it takes to write it.

Dana Spiotta

#8. Life is not a journey, it is a destination

Piero Scaruffi

#9. No lawyer can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.

Rufus Choate

#10. We Irish know how to make the most of the times of plenty, for sure enough they'll be famine again.

Karen Marie Moning

#11. It's often said that "the Irish built America. The truth is, not only did they build it, they also manufactured, repaired, and cleaned it, especially in the decades before and after the potato famine.

Rashers Tierney