playwrights-from-ireland

"When I from life's unrest had earned the grace Of utter ease beside a quiet stream; When all that was had mingled in a dream To eyes awakened out of time and place; Then in the cup of one great moment's space Was crushed the living wine from things that seem; I drank the joy of very Beauty's gleam, And saw God's glory face to shining face.Almost my brow was chastened to the ground, But for an inner Voice that said: "Arise! Wisdom is wisdom only to the wise: Thou art thyself the Royal thou hast crowned: In Beauty thine own beauty thou hast found, And thou hast looked on God with God's own eyes.""

"For sorrow and joy are one, and all the past And all the future mingle in a kiss."

"They said: "She dwelleth in some place apart, Immortal Truth, within whose eyes Who looks may find the secret of the skies And healing for life's smart."I sought Her in loud caverns underground,— On heights where lightnings flashed and fell; I scaled high Heaven; I stormed the gates of Hell, But Her I never foundTill thro' the tumults of my Quest I caught A whisper: "Here, within thy heart, I dwell; for I am thou: behold, thou art The Seeker and the Sought.""

"It is not those who can inflict the most but those that can suffer the most who will conquer."

"If I die the fruit will exceed the cost a thousand fold. The thought of it makes me happy. I thank God for it."

"In a physical contest on the field of battle it is allowable to use tactics and strategy, to retreat as well as advance, to have recourse to a ruse as well as open attack; but in matters of principle there can be no tactics, there is one straightforward course to follow, and that course must be found and followed without swerving to the end."

"I want you to bear witness that I die as a Soldier of the Irish Republic."

"I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release."

"Right wise it was of our Colm when founding in Iona his famous sixth century school and colony of monks and scholars, he forbade the bringing in of a cow. "Where comes a cow," the wise man laid down, "there follows a woman; and where comes a woman follows trouble.""

"A glass is good, and a lass is good, And a pipe to smoke in cold weather; The world is good, and the people are good, And we're all good fellows together."

"Dear sir, this brown jug, that now foams with mild ale, Out of which I now drink to sweet Kate of the vale, Was once Toby Filpot, a thirsty old soul, As e'er crack'd a bottle, or fathom'd a bowl;"

"I am a friar of orders grey, And down in the valleys I take my way; I pull not blackberry, haw, or hip,— Good store of venison fills my scrip."

"Amo, amas, I love a lass, As a cedar tall and slender; Sweet cowslip's grace Is her nom'native case, And she's of the feminine gender."

"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."

"... 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."

"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— ..."

"This lass so neat, with smiles so sweet, Has won my right good-will, I’d crowns resign to call thee mine, Sweet lass of Richmond Hill."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"More and more I realized that Ireland could rely only on force, in some form or another, to free herself."

"You have a hatred of the Catholic Church, ... But, for your poetry you will be forgiven. But sin no more."

"Love is a very strange idea. I never know what it is. When you were young it seemed to be all intensity and no opportunity. Later when you did get the opportunity the fire had gone out of it."

"He put his feet up on the mantelpiece and leaned back in the chair. He thought about how things happened to him but he brought nothing about. What he needed was self-discipline. His mother had ruled her own life with a hand of iron. She did everything she should do, getting up at seven and walking a mile to mass every day no matter what the weather; if she wanted one thing badly she did without others; if what she wanted was spiritual she denied her body. In Lent she took black tea and weighed her morsels of food on scales and for six weeks wouldn't let a sweet cross her lips although she loved them. She sent money abroad to her working sisters while at night she sat with a wooden mushroom darning her stockings with a criss-cross brown thread. She worked so her family would not want and Cal had never wanted while she was alive. He got a sense of a new life, a new start now that he had officially moved into the cottage. He would discipline himself. He felt a surge of his own power to direct his life into whatever path he wanted. There were six cigarettes left in his packet and he lit one and smoked it with a decadent pleasure, knowing it to be his last. The rest he threw into the fire."

""Once you've been through a tragedy you're scared of it ever after," Mrs Morton said."

"What about you?" "I would like to see a united Ireland, but I haven't decided the best way to go about it yet." "I feel sorry for it." "What?" "Ireland. It's like a child. It's only concerned with the past and the present. The future has ceased to exist for it."

"Violence is a bit like antibodies. Small doses build up until you can reject and be immune to the most horrific events."

"We went on a school trip down the Rhine one summer and I saw a crucifixion that made all others pale for me. It was a painting. And it was the first thing like that which had any effect on me. I stood and stared at it for so long the teachers lost me and had to come back for me."

"Cal, the world is full of gulpins who don't care who they hurt."

"If you have a war on your hands you send for the Mr Crillys of this world. The hard men and the bandits are the real revolutionaries, if you see what I mean. They get things done, they punch the hole for us to get through later."

"A bird's-eye view does not see the truth."

"Suddenly a police Land Rover with its hee-haw siren blaring swung into the main road behind them with a squeal of tyres. It roared along and overtook them so fast its body tilted at an angle to the chassis. Someone said, "Jesus, they'll sell no ice cream going at that speed.""

"It's a bad day when the biggest thing you catch is a seagull."

"When they had come recruiting to his school - 'for fishers of men' - all those years ago and had offered the glittering lures of sanctity and safety, Michael had jumped selflessly. It was a long time before the line pulled taut and he felt the pain of the hooks within him and the irony of the fisherman caught."

"He no longer believed in any of it. Faith was a bit like luck. Spiritual luck. By the end of his novitiate it had begun to drain away. He struggled and prayed to retain it but each morning that he awoke he realized that he had less of it. He had sprung a leak and he didn't know where to mend it. Nevertheless he took his final vows. He did not know what else he could do. To back out at that stage would have killed his father. He was convinced of it. Once he had discussed the problem with his Novice Master but he had averted his face and told him to pray. After this his prayers carried an extra phrase - if You exist. God, if You exist, help me. But this compromise eventually gave way to not praying at all. He felt totally trapped. [...] It was funny in a way that it was his love for his father and a desire not to hurt him that kept him for so long in the Brothers. But when his father died everything changed."

"Do you still want to - refuse to help?" "I'm afraid so." "Not to act - you know - is to act. By not doing anything you are helping to keep the Brits here."

"It was a way of not thinking - to concentrate on her surroundings. If she stared at things, then it helped block out stuff."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"They crossed a metal suspension bridge over a canal. Both sides of the structure bristled with padlocks. Some of the brass locks had felt-tipped names written on them. 'Don + Gwen', 'Micky & Minnie', 'Leo n Leonora'. One had a message written on it. 'Graham and Vickey. I love you more than Coco Pops.' "It must be some kind of love fest," Gerry said. "Clamped for ever." "Have you seen this kinda thing before?" "I've heard of it." "It'll be the young ones." "Trendy ones.""

"When they finally got into the foyer there were some enlarged black and white photographs. Anne in her school playground before the war. Anne in the street with friends. Anne at a desk, writing."

"What we run here, Brother, is a finishing school for the sons of the Idle Poor." "It finishes them all right."

"Michael wondered why it was the tragic things that remained with him most vividly."

""Bitter?" said the barmaid and he nodded. What a strange thing to call a drink. Bitter. Aloes. Sorrow. For something that was supposed to make you feel happy."

"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."