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“Be just before you are generous.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“...I live in Ireland every day in a drizzly dream of a Dublin walk...”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“Gladstone .. spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question, ...”
― W.C. Sellar, 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England

“Early Summer, loveliest season,
The world is being colored in.
While daylight lasts on the horizon,
Sudden, throaty blackbirds sing.

The dusty-colored cuckoo cuckoos.
"Welcome, summer" is what he says.
Winter's unimaginable.
The wood's a wickerwork of boughs.

Summer means the river's shallow,
Thirsty horses nose the pools.
Long heather spreads out on bog pillows.
White bog cotton droops in bloom.

Swallows swerve and flicker up.
Music starts behind the mountain.
There's moss and a lush growth underfoot.
Spongy marshland glugs and stutters.

Bog banks shine like ravens' wings.
The cuckoo keeps on calling welcome.
The speckled fish jumps; and the strong
Swift warrior is up and running.

A little, jumpy, chirpy fellow
Hits the highest note there is;
The lark sings out his clear tidings.
Summer, shimmer, perfect days.”
― Marie Heaney, The Names Upon the Harp: Irish Myth and Legend

“Cowan son of Branieucc, you're the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.”
― Sandi Layne, Éire's Captive Moon

“Go back to bed, Cowan. I want no promises from you.”
― Sandi Layne, Éire's Captive Moon

“What Ireland shares with many societies around the world is a dangerous reality: once a group of people is isolated as being in some way inferior, the general population becomes less concerned with how they are treated, even in the face of evidence of cruelty and abuse. In Ireland's case, the thousands of victims of industrial schools bear witness to a society unwilling to question its own comfortable certainties out of a fear that those beliefs might turn out to have been built on sand.”
― Mary Raftery, Suffer the Little Children : The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools

“Fookin' Irish, they're a race of political masochists, they love their fookin' chiefs and princes an' a strong hand belting. It's like the man said in the play, Abair and focal republic i nGaoluinn?”
― Gwyneth Jones, Castles Made of Sand