Catholics From Ireland

"After a long period when politicians weren't even sitting in the same building together, there actually was the churches working together, who in many ways provided the fabric that held society together."

"The impression that stays with me is that of a net spread over the world, which naturally prompts the question: how come a group of bishops are happy to spend a whole week together just for the simple purpose of creating a space for Christ to live among them through their mutual love? One Catholic bishop told me that he tries at all costs never to miss these meetings, because they are the most profound and 'mystical' experience of the whole year. It truly seems that God has a plan for this reality. Despite the inevitable difficulties, I believe that the reason there is such faithfulness to this annual appointment is because, through the atmosphere of mutual love, it’s possible to both glimpse and experience, this presence of Jesus alive in our midst, as the answer to many questions concerning ecumenism."

"The real challenge is for each person to become fully human and each of us to have an informed educated conscience knowing right and wrong, and what is good and bad and using the power and ability of free will to choose the good and act to respect, affirm, love and care for other people, especially those outside our own family. We must do it without looking for rewards and not how to benefit ourselves. This is the heart of being a Christian and all of us will find happiness, by helping others as Jesus of Nazareth taught us. Each of us must choose to read and study and learn the gospel values and freely and willingly choose and commit ourselves to do what we really truly believe is right, true and good, and reject wrong and evil in all its forms."

"We have to be saints. And we have to know that there will be challenge and fierce challenge at times. As Pope Francis famously said the Church is like a field hospital. That is a military term. We are involved in a war. Christ’s followers will get bruised and battered. There will be opposition even hatred, we will meet the cross; Calvary was a messy place. And we remind ourselves that God is in charge. He is the One who gives us strength and hope. And we must realize this fully. With Christ we can stand undaunted. After all Christ has overcome the world. Therefore the creative minority can stand unintimidated."

"The failure to admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man and the search for happiness in this world are interrelated. Both are predicated on the denial of Transcendence (and so the denial of conscience as the antenna of Transcendence, that inner sense of right and wrong) and so the denial of the universal call to holiness as man’s goal in life. Both are materialistic—reducing moral behaviour to a calculus of advantages and disadvantages to the autonomous self. Both constitute the essence of secularism. That secularism has seeped into the very fabric of the contemporary theology."

"If Stalin had learned to play cricket, the world might now be a better place."

"I think Catholicism is actually so counter-cultural to capitalism that it’s great to get relief from that economic narrative. It’s great to go to a place where it’s all about the losers. Capitalism is all about winning and ‘be the best that you can be’. That’s a tiresome mantra. ‘I am legend’ is appropriate if you’re a superhero, but not if you’re a human."

"Another mother's breaking Heart is taking over When the violence causes silence We must be mistaken."

"Her kind personality and beautiful singing voice earned for her numerous admirers. It must be added that the numbers she rescued from the darkness of depression are impossible to count. No words are adequate to describe Dolores or to accurately state the influence for good she has been over the years."

"Limerick is very very proud of [her]. As her teachers have been saying, she was a star that shone bright from the very beginning, and I wish her peace."

"I’m saddened to hear of the death of Dolores O’Riordan at just 46. Her wonderful band recorded a moving song after the Warrington bomb in memory of two innocent victims, Johnathan Ball and my son Tim. RIP Dolores … I was completely unaware what it was about."

"Only yesterday did I discover that her group, or she herself, had composed the song in memory of the event in Warrington. My wife came home from the police centre where she worked yesterday and told me the news. I got the song up on the laptop, watched the band singing, saw Dolores and listened to the words. The words are both majestic and also very real … The event at Warrington, like the many events that happened all over Ireland and Great Britain, affected families in a very real way and many people have become immune to the pain and suffering that so many people experienced during that armed campaign. To read the words written by an Irish band in such compelling way was very, very powerful."

"Dolores is some of those people that, when you get into her inner circle, you see the spirit, the person that she was, and she was just so kind, so supportive... and in my career—in the long years that I've been in it—I have to say she's one of those people that would call me and I would come running, no matter what, and my wife knows that. We had a very strong connections in that. She represented everything that I inspired to be, in a beautiful way. We connected in a very strong way..."

"Fans were connected on such a personal level with Dolores—they’d hear her lyrics and apply them to what was going on in their own lives."

"When Dolores wrote a song, I'd generally have known what it was about. You knew the period it was written in and what had been going on in her life. We never once in the thirty years sat down and said, 'What's that about?' She hated being asked to explain her lyrics. It was very much, 'You decide what it's about'... What Dolores also had, was a very low boredom threshold. Two days into rehearsals, you'd look over and see that look on her face. She mightn't have said anything there and then but at seven in the evening you'd get a call from her asking, 'What did you think of today?' and before you could answer she’d go, 'It wasn’t rock enough.' She was always the metaller in the band."

"The thing we remember the most about Dolores is the craic we had. She'd be sat on the bus ripping the piss out of you."

"Growing up in Ireland in the '90s, those songs were all over the radio, all of the time. We were not only proud that this quartet from Limerick were one of the biggest rock bands in the world, but that they were fronted by this badass, don't-give-a-fuck, non-conforming young woman that was a little bit intimidating, but also just so fucking... cool. [...] Who sang like her before? Who has been comparable to her since? In a world that has become increasingly difficult to uncover originality and uniqueness in music, her voice stood out like this weird, wonderful, otherworldly beacon. She was one of a kind, no doubt."

"I can't find a word to say to you I can't comprehend, I can't relate to you Plain to see your faith for me Take me higher angel fire Take me where I want to go Teach me things I need to know."

"I'm knowing this could be our last event Jaweh, Jaweh, Jaweh I'm knowing I am your youngest descent I don't want to know your pain I don't want to play the game."

"This is just an ordinary day Wipe the insecurities away I can see that the darkness will erode Looking out the corner of my eye I can see that the sunshine will explode Far across the desert in the sky Beautiful girl Won't you be my inspiration? Beautiful girl Don't you throw your love around What in the world, what in the world Could ever come between us?"

"And oh my dreams It's never quite as it seems 'Cause you're a dream to me Dream to me."

"And now I tell you openly You have my heart so don't hurt me You're what I couldn't find A totally amazing mind So understanding and so kind You're everything to me."

"Oh my life is changing everyday In every possible way And oh my dreams It's never quite as it seems Never quite as it seems."

"It's the same old theme Since nineteen-sixteen In your head, in your head, they are fighting With their tanks, and their bombs And their bombs, and their guns In your head, in your head they are crying In your head, in your head Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie What's in your head, in your head Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie, oh"

"They weren't mainstream and beautiful and attractive, visually (the Smiths, the Cure and Depeche Mode). I thought they were different and when I was a teenager I liked the idea that what you told was more important than what you appeared."

"I just always loved Yeats, him as a human. He was so passionate and just wrote what he felt."

"One of the things I always miss, is the pub culture You know, the atmosphere, the music, the craic, all the things you won't find anywhere else."

"When you're famous so young, become a millionaire overnight, people think you're going to crash and burn and be such a mess. I have my kids and Don."

"I always liked Doc Martens with really messed-up style, but at least I was thinking that my mind was more important than my body, anyway."

"My boyfriend—that I used to live with—was a painter and his friend was a sculptor and, like many people who go to Art College and get diplomas, they found it very difficult to be recognized outside of Limerick. They'd come to Dublin and put on exhibitions and get no support at all. Artists who live outside Dublin also find it harder to get financial assistance from establishments like the Arts Council. It's the same thing in music, in terms of support. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that Dublin has the media on its side and it pumps out this notion that Dublin is the centre of the universe, which it obviously isn't. It definitely never was for us."

"I’m very close to my mum. She has a strong faith that gives her this amazing sense of peace. I admire her; she's a very strong woman."

"I'm a strong-minded woman, but I don't try to deny that I'm a female in any way."

"There's only one woman who has been my friend over the years, and by that I mean a real friend, like a man would be. That woman is Maureen O'Hara. She's big, lusty, absolutely marvelous—definitely my kind of woman. She's a great guy."

"John Ford once wrote to me, "You are the best fucking actress in Hollywood." Then, when later asked by a young film student at UCLA about me, in front of Merian C.Cooper, he replied to his audience, "Her? That bitch couldn't act her way out of a brick shithouse.""

"When we arrived in Havana on April 15, 1959 ( for Our Man in Havana), Cuba was a country experiencing revolutionary change. How could I not meet Che? Che Guevara was often at the Capri Hotel. I would see him at the restaurant and he'd come to my table to say hello. Che would talk about Ireland and all the guerilla warfare that had taken place there. He knew every battle in Ireland and all of its history. Che knew more about Ireland than John Ford did. I couldn't believe it and finally asked, 'Che, you know so much about Ireland and talk constantly about it. How do you know so much?' He said, 'Well, my grandmother's name was Lynch and I learned everything I know about Ireland at her knee.' He was Che Guevara Lynch! That famous cap he wore was an Irish rebel's cap. I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. I believe he was far less a mercenary than he was a freedom fighter. Today he is a symbol for freedom fighters wherever they are in the world and I think he is a good one."

"In February 1953, I was making a second picture with Jeff Chandler, one called War Arrow. Jeff was a real sweetheart, but acting with him was like acting with a broomstick."

"Errol Flynn was an excellent fencer. He also knew his lines, something I greatly respect in an actor. Of course there was one glaring inconsistency with his professionalism. Errol also drank on the set, something I greatly disliked. You couldn't stop him. If the director prohibited alcohol on the set, then Errol would inject oranges with booze and eat during breaks. Everything good that we got on film was shot early in the day. He started gulping his water early in the morning and by four P.M. was in no shape to continue filming."

"Bette Davis was right—bitches are fun to play."

"There is nothing worse than having your personal problems become somebody else's entertainment."

"I began to rationalize marrying Will[iam Houston Price]. 'He comes from a good family. A girl could do worse.' (As it turned out, I couldn't, but I didn't know that yet)"

"Auctoritas siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indigent."

"Sed fortasse quis dixerit: Quomodo omnia, quae sunt, lumina sunt?"

"Cum ergo audimus, Deum omnia facere, nil aliud debemus intelligere, quam Deum in omnibus esse, hoc est, essentiam omnium subsistere."

"Pultes Scotorum."

"Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy."

"One man stands head and shoulders above his contemporary scholars: head and shoulders, some hold, above the Middle Ages: John Scotus Erigena."

"Tabula tantum."

"Nemo intrat in caelum nisi per philosophiam."

"Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa, Deus, et humiliter colitur, et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde, veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam."

"If I get into the House, Catholic Education will have an unremitting and sincere advocate."