Irish Quotes

I hope 'The Voice' has a fifteen-year run, don't get me wrong. But I come from nothing, and maybe it's the Irish in me, but my attitude is always like, 'They'll figure me out soon.'

Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French.

I went further and further back through the centuries to get a sense of perspective but now at least I understand why Irish history evokes such strong passions and emotions.

I was raised Irish Catholic, but I don't consider myself Irish Catholic: I consider myself me, an American.

They believed that Britain was in Ireland defending their own interests, therefore the Irish had the right to use violence to put them out. My argument was that that type of thinking was out of date.

The gun is not out of Irish politics.

But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that's why we came to America.

The Irish seem to have more fire about them than the Scots.

The British don't runaway from terrorism. We have had 30-odd years of terrorism in our own country from the Irish Republican Army. We're used to it.

My father was a Norwegian tenor and my mother a New York Irish librarian.

I'm Irish. I think about death all the time.

The economy in Ireland has been rampaging ahead for the last 15 years. Barring an international, political or natural catastrophe, things can only get better for the Irish.

As they say, one thing led to another, and, ultimately, the British and Irish governments asked me to serve as chairman of the peace negotiations, which ironically began six years ago this week.

Our Irish blunders are never blunders of the heart.

The basic policy of the British Government was that since the majority of people in Northern Ireland wished to remain in the United Kingdom, that was that. We asked what would happen if the majority wanted something else, if the majority wanted to see Irish unity.

That's what the holidays are for - for one person to tell the stories and another to dispute them. Isn't that the Irish way?

I have good genes. My father is Danish and my mother is Irish and Native American. They both have good skin.

I'm proud of my Irish heritage and culture and this show will feature a lot of Irish dancing.

When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

It is sufficient to say, what everybody knows to be true, that the Irish population is Catholic, and that the Protestants, whether of the Episcopalian or Presbyterian Church, or of both united, are a small minority of the Irish people.

To marry the Irish is to look for poverty.

Irish women are always carrying water on their heads, and always carrying their husbands home from pubs. Such things are the greatest posture-builders in the world.

I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt.

The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship, equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

Irish people are educated not only about artistry but local history.

You think that religion is a thing that is there to help you and to see you through life, and then you wake up one morning and find the entire Irish situation, the civil war that's based on religion.

Sometimes the archaism of the language when it's spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today.

My Irish passport makes me look like a chief of staff for the Provisional IRA.

There is not a single injustice in Northern Ireland that is worth the loss of a single British soldier or a single Irish citizen either.