The Irish
An Englishman thinks, seated; a Frenchman, standing; an American, pacing; An Irishman, afterward. In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God. The quiet Irishman is about as harmless as a powder magazine built over a match factory. James Dunne This is our fate: eight hundred years' disaster, crazily tangled like the Book of Kells: the dream's distortion and the land's division, the midnight raiders and the prison cells. John Hewitt 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 o' the mornin! John Locke Ireland is rich in literature that understands a soul's yearnings, and dancing that understands a happy heart. Margaret Jackson I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish. Marianne Moore Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him. Mark Twain Had you English not persecuted the Catholics in Ireland ... the greatest number of them would before now have become Protestants. Napoleon Bonaparte The Irish people do not gladly suffer common sense. Oliver St. John Gogarty If one could only teach the English how to talk and the Irish how to listen, society would be quite civilized. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) We Irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the Greeks. Oscar Wilde It is better to spend money like there's no tomorrow, than to spend tonight like there's no money. P.J. O'Rourke 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 FAIR PEOPLE; they never speak well of one another. Samuel Johnson This [the Irish] is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. Sigmund Freud In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs. Sir John Pentland Mahaffy The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song -- it's that they know them all. Susan Dooley God made the Italians for their beauty. The French for fine food. The Swedes for intelligence. The Jews for religion. And on and on until he looked at what he had created and said, "This is all very fine but no one is having fun. I guess I'll have to make me an Irishman." Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. Alex Levine An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout. Anonymous For the young Gaels of Ireland Are the lads that drive me mad, For half their words need footnotes And half their rhymes are bad. Arthur Guiterman An Irishman can be worried by the consciousness that there is nothing to worry about. Austin O'Malley I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society, except that which makes to road safer, the beer stronger, the old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier in the summer. Brendan Behan Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis. Brendan Behan Ireland is where strange tales beginand happy endings are possible. Charles Haughey Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it. Conor Cruise O'Brien Like an Irishman's obligation, all on the one side, and always yours. English saying I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) An Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) My one claim to originality among Irishmen is that I have never made a speech. George Moore When Irish eyes are smiling, watch your step. Gerald Kersh The Irish do not want anyone to wish them well; they want everyone to wish their enemies ill. Harold Nicolson The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent. Hugh Leonard