Irish Quotes

The Butcher Boy is a very great novel indeed and a very important Irish novel. The ambiguity of that is, he's writing a book about an appalling situation and he does it in a hilarious way.

My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American.

Well, we know that eighteen years after that solemn declaration it was disregarded, and the Irish Parliament, which lasted for five hundred years, was destroyed by the Act of Union. Gentlemen, the Act of Union was carried by force and fraud, by treachery and falsehood.

But let's just say, I'm Irish. I grew up in the 1950s. Religion had a very tight iron fist.

I'm just a loud Irish guy.

There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.

I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.

I own a lot of my house, because I'm Irish and from people who never owned anything.

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.

Violence and irrationality were so long and thoroughly cultivated among the Irish, and so perfectly ingrained into their nature, that modern civilization has as yet been unable to extract the virus.

Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.

Perhaps our Irish friends should not so completely turn their backs on their historical dishes, no matter how many jokes they might have to endure.

I'm just a true Irish boy at heart.

For every successful actor or actress, there are countless numbers who don't make it. The name of the game is rejection. You go to an audition and you're told you're too tall or you're too Irish or your nose is not quite right. You're rejected for your education, you're rejected for this or that and it's really tough.

The problem with being Irish... is having 'Riverdance' on your back. It's a burden at times.

My old manager of the Irish National Theatre said 'Don't worry about being a star, just worry about being a working actor. Just keep working.' I think that's really good advice.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

Humor has historically been tied to the mores of the day. The Yellow Kid was predicated on what people thought was funny about the immigrant Irish. When you're different in a society, you're funny.

The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.

People do think I'm Jewish. But we're Irish Catholic. My father had a brogue.

It is a most disgraceful shame the way in which Irishmen are brought up. They are ashamed of their language, institutions, and of everything Irish.

I had great faith in Irish actors, that they'd be hip to the whole theatre thing, and they are. I had no illusions of coming over here as some kind of big shot. It's been a learning experience for me too.

I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I'm English.

The Irish and British, they love satire, it's a large part of the culture.

I have a thing for red-haired Irish boys, as we know.

Me and Johnny Rotten have been talking about doing a movie of his book, No Irish, No Dogs, No Blacks. We have a script, so hopefully that's going to happen at some point in our careers.

There are not many Irish people playing tennis!

The Irish move to a very low corporation tax has generated very significant revenue growth, considerably in excess of Britain's, where a slower economy has been combined with a number of stealth taxes.

On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.

My dad's Irish music was such a huge influence.