David James O'Donoghue

"Irish humour, properly speaking, is, one may venture to say, more imaginative than any other. And it is probably less ill-natured than that of any other nation, though the Irish have a special aptness in the saying of things that wound, and the most illiterate of Irish peasants can put more scorn into a retort than the most highly educated of another race. There is sometimes a half-pathetic strain in the best Irish humorous writers, and just as in their saddest moments the people are inclined to joke, so in many writings where pathos predominates, the native humour gleams. If true Irish humour is not easily defined with precision, it is at least easily recognisable, there is so much buoyancy and movement in it, and usually so much expansion of heart."

"Only those who are in the closest intimacy with sacred objects venture to treat them familiarly, and the Irish peasant often speaks in an offhand manner of that which is dearest to him. Few nations could have produced such a harvest of humour under such depressing and unfavourable influences as Ireland has experienced. And it may be asserted with truth that many countries with far more reason for uninterrupted good-humour, with much less cause for sadness, would be hard put to it to show an equally valuable contribution to the world's lighter literature."