ireland

"I conducted a little survey of government websites. I asked for page view numbers for English and Irish versions for some pages I picked at random. All figures are for January 2025. A HSE page about treating Covid-19 symptoms at home had 5,274 views in English and 23 in Irish. A Department of Health page on the menopause had 337 views in English and four in Irish. A Department of Social Welfare page about the fuel allowance for pensioners was viewed 13,892 times in English and twice in Irish. A Department of Education page on guidelines for school designs had 1,007 views in English and two in Irish."

"The failure, however, did not lie mainly in the schools. It was the blatant failure of the state itself to devise arrangements for the subsequent use of the language that largely discredited compulsory Irish. The children were given no incentive to master Irish as a living language, only as a dead one. The charade of Irish language tests for public employment, when everybody knew the language would hardly ever be used again, the whole fetid system of favouritism associated with language knowledge, as distinct from language use, inevitably left its mark, stamping the most idealistic and most important task undertaken by the new state as yet one more sleazy political racket. Genuine language lovers who ‘loathed the way that the politicians, the pedagogues, the urbanised peasants had sucked the life and beauty from it’ were brushed aside."

"By 1948, the year Ireland became a republic, both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael "claimed as a priority the revival of the Irish language as the vernacular of the people – and both equally did nothing to stop the death of Irish-speaking communities like that on the Blaskets"."

"Tá léarscáileanna sa teanga dhúchais ar fáil i ngach tír a bhfuil féinmheas acu orthu féin."

"An t-aon fhadhb atá agamsa ná easpa tuisceanna i measc na heagraíochtaí Gaeilge mar gheall ar thábhacht cúrsaí margaíochta."

"An áit a bhfuil do chroi is ann a thabharfas do chosa."

"Ní neart go cur le chéile."

"Is fearr an tsláinte ná na táinte."

"Tír gan teanga, trí gan anam."

"The Irish language movement has not been good at seeking a strategic compromise. It still isn't. The 'all or nothing approach' generally results in nothing in the long run."

"Viewing the more traditional Irish language revival organisations as too narrow and conservative, he felt they had failed to sell Irish to people at grassroots level."

"There is one thing that the people of Ireland know how to do and that is to survive."

"The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved."

"Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question."

"I must say there is to me nothing more extraordinary than the determination of the Irish people to proclaim to the world that they are a conquered race. I have been always surprised that a people gifted with so much genius, so much sentiment, such winning qualities should be—I am sure they will pardon me saying it; my remark is an abstract and not a personal one—should be so deficient in self-respect. I deny that the Irish people are conquered as they are proud to tell us; I deny that they have any ground for that pride... I deny that the Irish are an ancient nation that have been conquered more than all ancient nations have been. I deny that the Irish have been conquered more than, or even as often, as the English. You never hear of an Englishman going about and boasting of his subjection. He boasts sometimes of having come over with William the Conqueror or rather of his ancestors having done so. The Irish have been conquered by the Normans and so have we, and in modern times I will not deny that Oliver Cromwell conquered Ireland, but it was after he had conquered England. William III could not have succeeded in conquering Ireland if he had not previously conquered England."

"The truth is, the people here [in Ireland] know nothing of the republican Negro hate prevalent in our glorious land. They measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not according to the color of their skin. Whatever may be said of the aristocracies here, there is none based on the color of a man's skin."

"Charge of inferiority is an old dodge. It has been made available for oppression on many occasions...When England wants to set the heel of her power more firmly in the quivering heart of old Ireland, the Celts are an 'inferior race'... If he knows as much when he is sober as an Irishman knows when drunk, he knows enough to vote."

"Every Irishman has a potatoe in his head."

"I never touch a drop when I'm happy. But it's a well-known fact that Irishmen are never happy."

"The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, sir, the Irish are a fair people—they never speak well of one another."

"Australia without the Irish would be unthinkable... unimaginable... unspeakable."

"These people were of all races, colors, and creeds. French were in the north and in the Carolinas. Dutch had built the town on Manhattan island, and their patroons' estates in the Hudson valley; now they were building their own cabins in the Mohawk Indian country that is now New York State. Germans had settled in the Jerseys and in the far west, beyond Philadelphia. Germans and Scotch-Irish were climbing the Carolina mountains; Swedes were in Delaware, English and French and Dutch and Irish were settled in Massachusetts, the New Hampshire Grants, Connecticut, and Virginia. Mingled with all these were Italians, Portuguese, Finns, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, and Africans from a dozen very different African peoples and cultures. Black, brown, yellow and white, all these peoples were some of them free and some of them slaves. Also they were intermarried with the American Indians."

"We're not here to take part, we're here to take over!"

"We are good people. We just like to have a good time. No trouble, we just want to have a good time."

"We're not British, we're not Saxon we're not English. We're Irish and proud we are to be. So fuck your Union Jack; we want our country back. We want to see old Ireland free once more."

"German Bismarck said that the solution of the Irish question lay in having the Irish to swap countries with the Dutch. He added that the Dutch would make Ireland the most beautiful island in the world while the Irish would neglect to mend the dykes left to them by the Dutch and therefore would be drowned."

"That's the Irish people all over – they treat a serious thing as a joke and a joke as a serious thing."

"The women of Ireland have been voting and fighting on all kinds of issues. There's no question but that there would be a literature coming out of their experiences."

"[T]he hospitable and generous Irishman has almost no friendship for any race but his own. As laborer and politician he detests the Italian. Between him and the German American citizen there is great gulf fixed…but the most naturalized thing for the Americanized Irishman is to drive out all other foreigners, whatever may be their religious tenets."

"What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen."

"Of course there is more to Ireland than water sports. There is also the Irish people, a warm and friendly lot who are constantly saying things like "Begorrah!" Alcohol will do this to people."

"Stony seaboard, far and foreign, Stony hills poured over space, Stony outcrop of the Burren, Stones in every fertile place, Little fields with boulders dotted, Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted, Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds, Where a Stone Age people breeds The last of Europe's stone age race."

"You know, the great waves of immigration that brought our ancestors to the United States in succeeding decades carried millions more Irishmen across the sea. Most of them arrived with little more than with hope in their hearts and strength of their dreams and beautiful memories of an emerald green isle, a home they would never fully leave behind. I've never met an Irishman in America who doesn't think he—hope he can see Ireland someday. You know, their sweet—or, excuse me, their sweat is soaked with the foundations of communities across the Nation. All across America. You can't go anywhere and not find it. By the way, Tip O'Neill, the former Speaker of the House, used to say that he'd have a—he'd have a reception for all the Irish in the Congress, the House and the Senate, and all those who wished they were Irish.And everybody showed up."

"Only those without a drop of Celtic blood believe there’s any magic in the Irish."

"Whether on the scaffold high Or on the battle-field we die, Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall."

"A very old author discoursing upon Irishmen, says, " Where Irishmen are good, it is impossible to find better, where they are bad, it is impossible to find worse." I am afraid we have got to this alternative. Treachery was never the character of Irishmen. Courage and intrepidity were their characteristics. Every creature is taught to fight, but boldly and fairly."

"God and nature have joined England and Ireland together. It is impossible to separate them."

"The common law of England is the common law of Ireland, where the latter is not altered by statute."

"Decisions of the Irish Courts, though entitled to the highest respect. are not binding on English Judges."

"Th' an'am an Dhia, but there it is— The dawn on the hills of Ireland. God's angels lifting the night's black veil From the fair sweet face of my sireland! O Ireland, isn't it grand, you look Like a bride in her rich adornin', And with all the pent up love of my heart I bid you the top of the morning."

"I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning; and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious either in the original of nations, or the affinities of languages, to be further informed of the revolutions of a people so ancient, and once so illustrious."

"Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow."

"Up to mighty London Came an Irishman one day. As the streets are paved with gold Sure, everyone was gay, Singing songs of Piccadilly, Strand and Leicester Square, Till Paddy got excited, Then he shouted to them there: (Chorus) It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go. It's a long way to Tipperary, To the sweetest girl I know! Goodbye, Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square! It's a long long way to Tipperary, But my heart's right there."

"Jack Judge, "It's a Long Way To Tipperary" (1912)"

"Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland, Some have come from a land beyond the wave, Sworn to be free, no more our ancient sireland, Shall shelter the despot or the slave. Tonight we man the "bearna bhaoil", In Erin's cause, come woe or weal, 'Mid cannons' roar and rifles' peal, We'll chant a soldier's song."

"In valley green, on towering crag, Our fathers fought before us, And conquered 'neath the same old flag That's proudly floating o'er us. We're children of a fighting race, That never yet has known disgrace, And as we march, the foe to face, We'll chant a soldier's song."

"History that challenges comfortable assumptions about the group is painful, but it is, as Michael Howard said, a mark of maturity. In recent years, Ireland has witnessed a major revision of its history in part because it is prosperous, successful, and self-confident, and the old stories of victimhood no longer have the resonance they once did. As a result, the old, simple picture of Catholic Irish nationalists versus the Ulster Protestants and their English supporters and the two separate histories that each had is now being amended to show a more complex history, and some cherished myths are being destroyed. In World War I, it used to be believed, only the Protestants fought. The nationalists were engaged, depending on which way you looked at it, either in treason or in a struggle for liberty. In fact, 210,000 volunteers from Ireland, a majority of them Catholics and Irish nationalists, fought for the British against the Germans. The Easter rising was not the unified movement of all Irish patriots of nationalist myth but the result, at least in part, of internal power struggles. As the president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, said in a recent lecture in London, “Where previously our history has been characterized by a plundering of the past for things to separate and differentiate us from one the other, our future now holds the optimistic possibility that Ireland will become a better place, where we will not only develop new relationships but will more comfortably revisit the past and find there ... elements of kinship long neglected, of connections deliberately overlooked.”"

"In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs."

"Yet, it is a regrettable fact of life that most Irish people are quite unaware of the very high calibre of individuals who presently comprise their country's navy and of the tremendous contribution they make to Ireland. Some have attributed this unfortunate situation to the reputed indifference and even hostility of the Irish people to all things maritime. The absence of a memorial in the form of a plaque or a street named in honour of Commander S. O'Muiris, founder of Ireland's wartime navy, is an indication of this indifference. Sadly, during the course of his research in Ireland, the author can testify to encountering on numerous occasions, a wilful indifference among the general population towards Irish naval and maritime achievements. Many Irish people prefer to content themselves with an image of the Irish Naval Service, as portrayed in the mid-1960s by the renowned folk group, the Dubliners ("When the captain blows his whistle, the ship goes home for tea"). One of the obvious reasons why so few Irish people have an opportunity to update their perception of their country's navy by at least 30 years, is that the INS rarely comes into contact with the wider population. The patrol ships are always "out of sight and out of mind", that is, they are at sea for 180 days a year. When not on patrol, they are normally tried up alongside in the country's only naval base, Haulbowline Island. For those who do not live in any of the country's main ports or near a sheltered deep water natural harbor, it is unlikely that they will come into contact with the Naval Service."

"In contrast, most Irish people will have an opportunity to come into contact with army units. Nearly every town in Ireland has an FCA training centre, or is close to one. All of Ireland's cities have regular army barracks and the sight of military vehicles and uniformed army personnel is not unusual. The Army's role in support of the civil power at home or overseas with the United Nations, receives regular coverage in national newspapers. Most Irish people are well informed about Ireland's contribution to the United Nations' forces in Lebanon and most recently in Somalia. The Irish army is held in high regard among most Irish people. It is seen as a manifestation of sovereignty, especially as the army claims an unbroken link with the insurrectionists of 1916. Unfortunately the Naval Service enjoys no such legacy; founded in 1946, its first commanding officer was from the Royal Navy."