Ira Quotes

• For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms.

  Gerry Adams

  Government, Years, British

  Gerry Adams' Speech to IRA in Belfast, news.bbc.co.uk. April 6, 2005.

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• In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

  Gerry Adams

  Struggle, Eye, Past

  Gerry Adams (2007). “An Irish Eye”, Brandon Books

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• The IRA has abandoned its armed struggle in pursuit of its goals by political means. This must be fully acknowledged. Continued challenge does nothing but obstruct and inhibit the peace process.

  James T. Walsh

  Struggle, Mean, Goal

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• What's crucial is that the IRA produce a credible statement that paramilitary and criminality activity is a thing of the past. That they are committed to a future which is exclusively peaceful and democratic.

  Peter Hain

  Past, Peaceful, Produce

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• The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn.

  Peter Hain

  Running, Government, Missing

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• But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.

  Seamus Heaney

  Mean, Perception, Brutality

  Seamus Heaney (2014). “Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996”, p.421, Macmillan

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• I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me

  Ethel Merman

  Song, Lucky, Firsts

  Ethel Merman, George Eells (1979). “Merman: an autobiography”, Berkley Pub Group

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• There are many resistance movements in the world, like the IRA for instance. But it is only Islamic resistance movements that are put on the terrorist list. This is what I am saying.

  Ahmed Yassin

  Islamic, Movement, World

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• Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing.

  Joni Mitchell

  Writing, Mean, Shame

  60 Copy quote

• My Irish passport makes me look like a chief of staff for the Provisional IRA.

  Jack Higgins

  Looks, Staff, Chiefs

  58 Copy quote

• On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.

  Kate Adie

  Believe, Government, Media

  53 Copy quote

• Freedom can be gained only at the point of an IRA rifle, and I apologize to no one for saying that we support the freedom fighters of the IRA.

  Martin McGuinness

  Support, Rifles, Apologizing

  47 Copy quote

• Britain has the IRA and no one cancels concerts there.

  Sharon Osbourne

  Israel, Concerts, Britain

  18 Copy quote

• The sorrow of the IRA Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed.

  Steven Morrissey

  Sorrow, Bombing, Brighton

  6 Copy quote

• I remember the 70s constantly being winter in Manchester and the Irish community in Manchester closing ranks because of the IRA bombings in Birmingham and Manchester, and you know the bin-workers' strike, all wrapped up in it... They were violent times. Violence at home and violence at football matches.

  Noel Gallagher

  Football, Home, Winter

  "Who wants to be a drug addict at 41?". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. December 5, 2008.

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• Do you really think the IRA would think me a worthwhile target ?

  Lord Mountbatten

  Thinking, Target, Worthwhile

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• We had the IRA ceasefire in August 1994 and a lot of people assumed that a deal had been done - which wasn't right.

  David Trimble

  August, People, Done

  Source: www.newsletter.co.uk

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• Ira [Gershwin] was the shyest, most diffident boy we had ever known. In a class of lower east side rapscallions, his soft-spoken gentleness and low-keyed personality made him a lovable incongruity. He spoke in murmurs, hiding behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses..Ira had a kid brother who wore high stiff collars, shirts with cuffs and went out with girls.

  Yip Harburg

  Girl, Brother, Kids

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.

  Doris Lessing

  September 11, Terrible, Happened

  "September 11 wasn't that bad, says Nobel winner Lessing" by Haroon Siddique, www.theguardian.com. October 23, 2007.

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• Paisley has been and remains a greater threat to the Union than the Foreign Office and the Provisional IRA rolled into one.

  Enoch Powell

  Office, Unions, Paisley

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• But grant the wrath of Heaven be great, 'tis slow.
  [Lat., Ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum est.]

  Juvenal

  Wrath, Heaven, Retribution

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• The reality is that when Sinn Fein gets into these talks, there will be no more options for armed republicanism, for the IRA.

  Sean Kane

  Reality, Sinn Fein, Republicanism

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• The GAA is the sporting wing of the IRA.

  Sammy Wilson

  Wings

  "Can Showman Sammy Wilson Become the Next Leader of DUP?" by Liam Clarke, www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk. November 13, 2014.

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• My dad [Johnny Cash] went to the [Richard] Nixon White House and refused to sing "Welfare Cadillac" (instead performing the anti-war songs "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" and "Man in Black"). He protested the Vietnam War, but he went to perform for the troops with bombs dropping all around him. He had that kind of genius: a true artist's capacity for holding two opposing thoughts at once while being large enough to encompass all realities.

  Rosanne Cash

  Song, Dad, War

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• Anger assists hands however weak.
  [Lat., Quamlibet infirmas adjuvat ira manus.]

  Ovid

  Anger, Hands, Weak

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