Ireland Quotes - Page 18

• 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

  Lying, Eye, Saving

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.285, Simon and Schuster

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• ...though one can be callous in Ireland one cannot be wholly opaque or material. An unearthly disturbance works in the spirit; reason can never reconcile one to life; nothing allays the wants one cannot explain.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Opaque, Want, Spirit

  Elizabeth Bowen (1998). “Bowen's Court”

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• 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

  Rivals, England, Sophisticated

  Kenneth Tynan (1961). “Curtains: Selections from the Drama Criticism and Related Writings”

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• There is no topicmore soporific and generally boring than the topic of Ireland as Ireland, as a nation.

  Ezra Pound

  Topics, Boring, Nations

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• They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That's not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It's just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.

  Dodie Smith

  Ocean, Fog, Sea

  "Fictional character: Roderick Fitzgerald". "The Uninvited", www.imdb.com. 1944.

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• ... in Northern Ireland, if you don't have basic Christianity, rather than merely religion, all you get out of the experience of living is bitterness.

  Bernadette Devlin

  Religion, Bitterness, Christianity

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• A city built upon mud;
  A culture built upon profit;
  Free speech nipped in the bud,
  The minority always guilty.
  Why should I want to go back
  To you, Ireland, my Ireland?

  Louis MacNeice

  Cities, Culture, Bud

  Louis MacNeice (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.177, Faber & Faber

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• Up the Rebels, To Hell with the Pope,
  And God Save--as you prefer--the King or Ireland.
  The land of scholars and saints:
  Scholars and saints my eye, the land of ambush,
  Purblind manifestoes, never-ending complaints

  Louis MacNeice

  Kings, Eye, Land

  Louis MacNeice (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.176, Faber & Faber

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• I was the rector's son, born to the anglican order,
  Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;
  The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept
  With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

  Louis MacNeice

  Son, Order, Necks

  Louis MacNeice (2015). “Collected Poems”, p.91, Faber & Faber

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• Why do we like being Irish? Partly because
  It gives us a hold on the sentimental English
  As members of a world that never was,
  Baptized with fairy water

  Louis MacNeice

  Giving, Water, World

  Louis MacNeice (2015). “Selected Poems”, p.94, Faber & Faber

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• We, at least, are not loyal men: we confess to having more respect and honour for the raggedest child of the poorest labourer in Ireland today than for any, even the most virtuous, descendant of the long array of murderers, adulterers and madmen who have sat upon the throne of England.

  James Connolly

  Children, Men, Long

  James Connolly (1987). “Labour in Irish history ; The re-conquest of Ireland ; Socialism and nationalism”

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• We are always giving foreign names to very native things. If there is a thing that reeks of the glorious tradition of the old English tavern, it is toasted cheese. But for some wild reason we call it Welsh rarebit. I believe that what we call Irish stew might more properly be called English stew, and that it is not particularly familiar in Ireland.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Food, Believe, Names

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• We who represent the Unionist Party in England and Scotland have supported, and we mean to support to the end, the loyal minority [in Ireland]. We support them not because we are intolerant, but because their claims are just.

  Bonar Law

  Party, Mean, Scotland

  Bonar Law's speech in the Albert Hall, January 26, 1912.

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• These people in the North-East of Ireland, from old prejudices perhaps more than from anything else, from the whole of their past history, would prefer, I believe, to accept the government of a foreign country rather than submit to be governed by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway.

  Bonar Law

  Country, Party, Believe

  Bonar Law's speech in the House of Commons, api.parliament.uk. January 1, 1913.

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• In Ireland, there are the same fossils, the same shells and the same sea bodies, as appear in America, and some of them are found in no other part of Europe.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Europe, Sea, America

  Georges Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon (1817). “A Natural History, General and Particular: Containing the History and Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, the Brute Creation, Vegetables, Minerals, Etc. Etc”, p.128

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• The Irish always jest even though they jest with tears.

  Katharine Tynan

  Tears, Jest

  Katharine Tynan (1922). “The Wandering Years”

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• I have often heard it said that the Irish are too ready to forgive. It is a noble failing.

  Katharine Tynan

  Forgiving, Noble, Failing

  Katharine Tynan (1922). “The Wandering Years”

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• The trouble with the Irish question always has been that it was an English question.

  Katharine Tynan

  Trouble, Has Beens

  Katharine Tynan (1922). “The Wandering Years”

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• Religion dies hard in the Irish.

  Katharine Tynan

  Dies, Hard

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• the way with Ireland is that no sooner do you get away from her than the golden mists begin to close about her, and she lies, an Island of the Blest, something enchanted in our dreams. When you come back you may think you are disillusioned, but you know well that the fairy mists will begin to gather about her once more.

  Katharine Tynan

  Dream, Lying, Thinking

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• Irish people have a trick of over-statement, at which one ceases to wince as one grows older.

  Katharine Tynan

  People, Tricks, Wince

  Katharine Tynan (1913). “Twenty-five Years: Reminiscences”

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• DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Fashion, Men, Names

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.51, University of Georgia Press

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• Ireland is a small but insuppressible island half an hour nearer the sunset than Great Britain.

  Tom Kettle

  Sunset, Islands, Half

  Tom Kettle (1918). “The day's burden: studies, literary & political and miscellaneous essays”

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• Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter. Whereas, in Northern Ireland, they are killing one another over religion.

  Quentin Crisp

  Religious, War, Ideas

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• More people died as a result of the tiny abortive Easter Uprising against British rule in Ireland (1916) than died as a result of political violence in Germany during the entire National Socialist revolution.

  Adolf Hitler

  Easter, Uprising, People

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