Novelists From Ireland

"... a devout man with a great love of the earth. He has also a fine sense of the traditional ballad."

"The editor is seated with a countrywoman at the door of her cottage in an isolated place. Three young girls on their way to a dance come along. They adjust their head-shawls, showing off a little. "They are pretty girls," the editor says to the householder. "If they were hanged for their beauty, they'd die innocent," is her reply. This is a real piece of wit. She did not want to contradict one who is her guest. He has shown, however, that his standard of beauty leaves something to be desired. Her judgment of the beauty under consideration is reasonable, but the expression of it is imaginative. When one puts imagination at the service of criticism, the result is apt to be a piece of malice, and Irish wit is often malicious. An illustration in a Dublin journal shows two farmers seated on a boundary fence. "I don't see a gap in the moon tonight," one says; and the other answers, "If you did you could let your cows in through it." This strikes at the farmer who would save forage by letting his cows into his neighbor's field through a gapped fence."

"Ireland is a country that has two literatures—one a literature in ——that has been cultivated continuously since the eighth century, and the other a literature in English—Anglo-Irish literature—that took its rise in the eighteenth century. Anglo-Irish literature begins, as an English critic has observed, with Goldsmith and Sheridan humming some urban song as they stroll down an English laneway. That is, it begins chronically in that way. At the time when Goldsmith and Sheridan might be supposed to be strolling down English laneways, Ireland, for all but a fraction of the people, was a Gaelic-speaking country with a poetry that had many centuries of cultivation."

"The speech of the Irish country-people is fine material for the dramatist, and the Irish dramatists have made good use of it. 's dialogue reproduces the energy and the extravagance of the people's speech— ..."

"I’ll sing thee songs of Araby, And tales of wild Cashmere, Wild tales to cheat thee of a sigh, Or charm thee to a tear."

"Tyranny Absolves all faith; and who invades our rights, Howe'er his own commence, can never be But an usurper."

"For righteous monarchs, Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; To rule o’er freemen, should themselves be free."

"Of all the stages in a woman’s life, none is so dangerous as the period between her acknowledgment of a passion for a man, and the day set apart for her nuptials."

"Your people of refined sentiments are the most troublesome creatures in the world to deal with."

"It is disturbing to imagine a figure of apparent dignity and autonomy, one who achieved such mastery in her field, as weak enough to indulge this sort of thinking. This sort of self-pity, this admission of dependence – not just on a man, but a man capable of abusing children and blaming it on them."

"It is, sadly, not unheard of for the mother of an abuse victim to side with a romantic partner who is the child’s abuser. Sometimes this expresses itself as blanket denial even in the face of clear evidence, sometimes it is a grim choice born of financial dependence on the abuser, and sometimes it is a consequence of being another victim of the abuser's violence. What is striking, and frankly repellent, about Munro's decision to stand by Fremlin is how lucid it appears to have been, and without any material necessity driving it. Rather it seems to have been a choice made for reasons that are sentimental in a ghastly sense – because she couldn't bear to be alone, to leave this man she loved."

"Though there is more I could say on this – details that would both elicit sympathy and make me look like a spoiled little shit – that was all there really was to it. The slow, boring poison of drink and secret-keeping, spread out into every part of my life, so that nothing was safe or good any more. Until I woke up one day and realised I could not remember the last time I had read a book."

"Almost as soon as I began, I was lost. The idea of getting up each day and going to class, of learning over and over again that I was stupid, and crass, and incompetent, did not seem doable. It hadn't occurred to me that I was there to learn, to become less stupid. I felt I had failed already, fumbled the opening pass. I had arrived to university quite mad already and quickly became exuberantly so, drinking litres of gin by night and lying in bed, shaking with fear, all day long. It wasn't laziness, exactly, that stopped me trying to work, but that fear. It lay immobile on my chest. All of Dublin, but especially Trinity, felt corrupted by some malign force that I couldn't break through."

"[H]is working-class background became embroiled in a circular logic with his misogyny, where [[Russell Brand|[Russell] Brand]]'s sexism was condescendingly validated by his class credentials and vice versa. Brand can't help speaking about women that way, that's just what someone with his background is like, people seemed to shrug – neglecting to recognise that this is not a condition of working-class people. In this way, he was allowed to be openly misogynistic for years, with anyone who objected to his presence dismissed as stuffy, classist or incapable of humour."

"In the midst of all this, I've noticed a tonal shift in the way I and other Irish people speak about the English. Our anger is more sincere. We are more ready to call them out on all those centuries of excess, more likely to object to those pink-trousered, pink-faced dinosaurs who still perceive us as their inferiors."

"Part of what I find depressing about England is that, rather than being upset with the wider forces that make your life horrible, you're encouraged to look at your neighbour like, 'He's making £10 too much a week on his benefits, and I'm going to report that f***er'. When I read a tabloid occasionally, I feel that being stoked — you're supposed to hate someone who has a tiny bit more than you to avoid having to look at why you don't have enough for yourself."

"I've lived in London for three years. I hadn't spent much time in Britain before my arrival and had no particular feelings toward the English. I expected them to react to me with similar neutrality. What I didn't expect was the toxic mix of dismissal and casual disdain. It would have been easier, perhaps, if it was all as overt as potato jokes. But what kills you is the ignorance; what grinds you down is how much they don’t know about the past and, if they do know, how little they care. It's a strange and maddening thing to discover about the people who shaped your country’s fate and who are poised to do so again."

"Charles J. Kickham was the finest intellect in the Fenian Movement, either in Ireland or America, although his defective sight and hearing prevented the demonstration of that fact in public. One would have to know him personally and to see his work in council to realize the superiority of his mind over those of his colleagues and contemporaries."

"He gave us what still the best known of all Irish novels by dint, not of art, but of love and sincerity. Knocknagow never will die, unless the Irish nation dies."

"I was a beardless stripling then, but proud as any lord; And well I might—in my right hand I grasped a freeman's sword; And though an humble peasant's son, proud squires and noble peers Would greet me as a comrade—we were The Volunteers."

"Knocknagow is the national Irish novel. To love the "Homes of Tipperary" is to love what is purest and strongest and raciest and best in Ireland. There is awkwardness in many of Kickham's chapters, but what strength in the best! Matt the Thresher is for Ireland as much a national figure as for England any in Copperfield; and the rural scene has the richness, often, of Blackmore's self. In the figure of the honoured piper, there is a touch of the authentic, traditional pride that runs, a golden thread through the rustic homespun."

"Only poor labouring men! And when was Ireland ever formidable to her oppressor without them? Could emancipation have been won without them? Did not their example shame the "respectable" classes, and even the priests themselves, into doing their duty? Was it not the labouring men who made the O'Connell meetings monster meetings, and their shillings that swelled the O'Connell treasury... For if ever a successful blow is to be struck for the poor old country, it is the hand of the toiler that will strike it."

"It will all come right, if you try. The beginning is not everything."

"You can't choose your children."

"INTERVIEWER: (After an awkward silence) And how do you see the future? PROFUNDO: I wait for it to come and then look at it (laughs)."

"There's not much you can do in this world without people getting to know."

""But listen to this," Kathleen laughed and wheezed. "We had been talking about books. He tells me he reads a lot - as a matter of fact he's book mad - and when I came in with the tea I said 'Do you like Earl Grey?' and he says, 'I don't know. What did he write?' Isn't that marvellous?" Mary smiled and nodded while Kathleen giggled uncontrollably."

"It is disconcerting to find that an acquaintance considers you his best friend, his soul mate, but I could do nothing about it."

"He continued talking. "When you find out about real education you can never leave it alone. I don't mean A-levels and things like that - you are just proving something to yourself with them - but books, ideas, feelings. Everything to do with up here." He tapped his temple. "And here." He tapped the middle of his chest."

"It concentrates the mind wonderfully knowing that this [life] is all we can expect."

"Sit down, son, don't loom."

"I come from the kind of house where if my father saw me with a book in my hand he'd say, "Can you not find something better to do?""

"Neil offered his arm as she lowered herself from the step to the ground. "What a polite young man." "That's my mother's fault.""

"On the wall above the desk was an ikon he had bought in Thessaloníki - he afterwards discovered that he had paid too much for it. It had been hanging for some months before he noticed, his attention focused by a moment of rare idleness, that Christ had a woodworm hole in the pupil of his left eye. It was inconspicuous by its position, and rather than detracting from the impact, he felt the ikon was enhanced by the authenticity of this small defect."

"When she emptied the kettle she always filled it for the benefit of the next person."

"I always say that a man with one language is like a man with one eye."

"There's nobody can fix this but yourself. You are the only one who can make the changes."

""Four pounds?" Still the woman hesitated. "Any less and it'd be a favour," he said. Already he was out of pocket. He stood up to end the bargaining."

"He wanted to pray but couldn't because he no longer believed. Prayer was just an intense wishing."

"Believers. I mean, where have they all gone?"

"They are angry men with vision, Brother, and by God their anger is justified. Ireland has not much longer to suffer. Her misery will soon be over and we'll be a united country again." "Yes," said Brother Sebastian, "but I don't like their methods." "Nor do I, Brother. Nor do I. But do you like the methods of the British Government any better?"

"Gerry had once said to her in the middle of an argument that he didn't believe in souls but if, just perchance, they did exist, hers would be like a razor. She had been made that way by the Catholic Church, he said. Inflexible, narrow, capable of doing terrible damage by her adherence to rules and systems. But she totally objected. She told him that if she was a good person at all, it had come from her religion. If she had any sense of justice and fairness, any concept of equality, then it had come from the Church."

"The coffee was good and the first sip made him want a cigarette. His hand went to his pocket before he realised it was decades since he'd had a smoke. The desire came out of nowhere. He thought how foolish, how stuck in routine the body becomes. Would the same thing happen if he tried to give up drinking?"

"Stella was telling the clerk that there was a Catholic church in the heart of the red-light district called 'Our Dear Lord in the Attic'. "Would there be Mass there?" "No, I do not think so." The clerk shook his head. "It is now a museum." "All religion should be in museums," Gerry said."

"On the wall above the sink was a board, with tools clipped to it. A hammer, screwdrivers - a pair of pliers, a hacksaw. And other stuff. Each item was outlined carefully in red paint. "I like your board arrangement," said Stella. "It's to remind me to put things back. If I don't, the empty ghost yells at me. So I put things back.""

"She rummaged in her bag and produced a postcard she'd bought in the museum shop. Old Woman Reading. It was not the painting she had seen but a different one. When she'd asked for the postcard the assistant had shrugged and said they were out of it. There are many old women reading, she said. The assistant had offered her another, even better, card. An old woman, cowled in some dark material, looking down at a book. It was so lovely - the concentration in the eyes, the luminescence of the ancient face reflected from the page, the interior light from reading whatever was printed there."

"He succeeded in persuading her back to look at The Jewish Bride. There was a crowd gathered around it. It was huge, big as a hoarding, a great slash of browns and yellows and reds. Two figures, a man and a woman on the edge of intimacy, or perhaps just after, about to coorie in to one another. Hands. Hands everywhere. A painting about touch. Stella joined the crowd and wormed her way to the front. Gerry watched her bite her lip as she gazed. She became aware of Gerry watching her. He excused himself and threaded his way to her side. "Well?" "There's a great tenderness in him," she said. "You can see he cherishes her." "Look at that big hand of his," Gerry said. "And the sleeve. Like a big croissant. The way he's put the paint on." "And the faces," she said. "But she's not so sure. Shy, yes. Sure, no. What sumptuous clothes." She pointed out the groom's hand around the woman's shoulder and his other hand resting on her breast. The bride's touch of the groom's hand."

"A thing that really took his breath away was Norman Foster's roof over the Great Court at the British Museum - the audacity and brilliance of it. The approach inside the building from a periphery of darkness into the thrilling light at its centre - the largest covered square in Europe - was utterly wonderful."

"You know how vivid things are in extremis. There's something going on in the brain. Chemicals. They make the moment indelible.""

"She found a large and classy department store. Like any other city, Amsterdam was full of shops which sold things that nobody wanted. Or the kind of things some people wanted but nobody needed."