Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Irish Quotes from famous persons: Hozier, Dylan Moran, Deirdre O’Kane, Harrison Ford, Jason O’Mara. The wide variety of quotes available makes it possible to find a quote to suit your needs. You’ve likely heard some of the Irish Quotes before, but that’s because they truly are great.
1
I have a bit of a love affair with fairy tales and some of the ideas of Irish mythology, like Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, who captured a lot of that very beautifully.
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
I’m Irish and always will be, but America has taught me so much. Maybe it’s here in the U.S. that we find a healing, for in the broader melting pot we get to look at some of these self-destructive attributes that we bring to bear upon our own quarrels and begin to solve them in ways other than just splitting apart.
16
I grew up in an environment in Birmingham that was really multicultural, with black kids, Irish kids, Indian kids.
17
18
19
20
I was attracted to black music for the same reason that I loved those old Irish ballads. Both were social statements of sorts, and both were indigenous to their respective cultures: Ireland, where my father had grown up, and towns like St. Louis along the Mississippi River, where I was growing up.
21
My family calls me Declan. But most people call me E.C. I think it comes from my dad. It’s an Irish convention. You usually call the first child by the initials.
22
I look Italian, but I act Irish.
23
I think most of the world would like to be Scottish. All the Americans who come here never look for English blood or Welsh, only for Scottish and Irish. It’s understandable. The Scots effectively created the face of the modern world: the railways, the bridges, the tunnels.
24
I come from the tradition of a big Irish family that loves to sing. I love to perform.
25
26
27
I’m very aware of my own background. I’m Irish, French, and then a little bit of everything else thrown in, ranging from German to Native American. We’re talking about tiny drops of blood.
28
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.
29
30
The best thanks we could offer those who went before and raised the Irish working class from their knees was to press forward with determination and enthusiasm towards the ultimate goal of their efforts, a Co-operative Commonwealth for Ireland.
31
32
33
34
I’m proud to be Irish.
35
36
37
38
39
40
The Irish seem to have more fire about them than the Scots.
41
As an Irish person, there’s a historical fascination with America: America is the default green and promised land for Irish people and Italians; that’s what we grow up with.
42
Most boys’ first hero is their father. That was definitely true of my dad. He was a proud Irish American and he taught me a lot about ethics and responsibility. He also introduced me to a lot of wonderful folk music.
43
44
My father was sick when I was little, and we had a woman, a nanny-type, who was from Ireland. Her daughter was in Irish dancing, so she put me in it, and in the summertime, every weekend was filled with traveling somewhere to dance in competitions.
45
46
47
I’m Irish. I don’t know how to take a compliment.
48
I came to think that nobody from England could draw American comic books, because they were clearly all done by this sort of Mafia, all these guys with Italian and Irish names who had the whole thing sewn up. It was actually seeing a comic book drawn by Barry Smith, who was about my age, and English.
49
Listening to all these different musical genres from all over the world and listening to my father’s record collection, the Irish folk influences from home. Of course they’re all in there somewhere hiding within the lyrics and melodies. But rap music was the biggest influence on my way of writing and my performing.
50
In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy – you can be arrested for it. It’s risky asking people for money in public. So it’s not like it’s a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
Poetry is not Irish or any other nationality; and when writers such as Messrs. Clarke, Farren and the late F. R. Higgins pursue Irishness as a poetic end, they are merely exploiting incidental local colour.
59
60
As our company grew and we began growing our family stateside – with heritages ranging from Liberian and Sierra Leonean to Irish, Indian, Swedish, Filipino, German, and beyond – our different cultural influences and walks of life helped us even better understand the criticality of an inclusive point of view.
61
62
I hold that the beginning of modern Irish drama was in the winter of 1898, at a school feast at Coole, when Douglas Hyde and Miss Norma Borthwick acted in Irish in a Punch and Judy show; and the delighted children went back to tell their parents what grand curses ‘An Craoibhin’ had put on the baby and the policeman.
63
64
65
As I told Piers Morgan, ‘Catholics have confession, whereas Northern Irish Protestants only have interviews.’
66
I grew up with this idea that songwriters had a great job. My family was Irish Catholic, so if you became a priest or a songwriter, you were golden.
67
68
69
The Irish and Russian communities are huge in New York, so this is truly one of the only places where I can fight in front of all of my fans.
70
71
72
73
74
I will never forget walking out on a Saturday night with Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne, household names who were opinionated and full of confidence, and I was just this Irish guy.
75
76
I’m Irish. I think about death all the time.
77
78
The so-called Boer War advertised British vulnerabilities, and these were confirmed by the Irish rising of 1916 and the subsequent creation of the Irish Free State, blows that attracted the notice and attention of colonial dissidents in Asia and Africa.
79
My uncle was a photographer for ‘The Irish Times.’
80
I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they’re English or American, from Manchester or London… or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.
81
82
Being Irish, I always had this love of words.
83
My father told me fairy stories and he read to us. And my grandmother was Irish. She told us about ‘the little people.’ When I went into the forest I used to look for them.
84
85
86
Ireland and America, music-wise, are very closely related. The Irish came over with their fiddles in hand, and you can hear it in the bluegrass and rockabilly. I love it when music from different countries combine.
87
88
89
90
Irish music in the local pubs was my first exposure to musical expression, and I feel like Irish music is very close to musical theater because it is always telling a story.
91
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.
92
Dublin is really fun, and Irish people are hilarious.
93
I have Irish on both sides of my family.
94
95
96
97
I think there is a very strong sense of Irish identity, and I think partly that’s to do with the fact that we have evolved differently from Britain and other countries in Europe.
98
99
100
101
The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they would not be given jobs minding mice at crossroads.
102
I am a proud Englishman, having been born and raised in London. However, I am just as proud of my family’s Irish heritage and my affinity and connection with the country.
103
104
105
Both the U.K. and the E.U. have made a sincere commitment to the people of Northern Ireland: there will be no hard border. Equally, as a U.K. government, we could not countenance a future in which a border was drawn in the Irish Sea, separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.
106
You find Jews, Irish, and Italians in every orchestra.
107
I went into the world confident my tea training would open many doors. And I did particularly well with the Irish and fellow Nova Scotians over 60. But this only got me so far. It took a long time to cultivate the tricks of easy social interaction.
108
My brother and I were born in an Irish county called Tipperary. We were both very math- and science-inclined in high school. My dad trained as an electrical engineer, and my mom is in microbiology.
109
110
111
I’m just a true Irish boy at heart.
112
113
I’m born and raised in the Northeast. My parents are Irish immigrants. So our tendency is to shy away from the big yellow ball that comes up in the sky every once in a while.
114
The power of the print reviewer is one of those urban myths. There have always been shows that slipped under the critical radar to become popular successes: ‘Tobacco Road’, ‘Abie’s Irish Rose’ and our old friend ‘Spider-Man’, which got the worst reviews in theatre history and is still apparently going strong.
115
I think Irish people pride themselves on being at the forefront of technological industries, things like the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, all those hi-tech industries, we’re always there or thereabouts.
116
117
118
119
120
121
Northern Irish people tend to have this sharp, dark sense of humour.
122
When I go home, I go to my house in the countryside. I don’t hang out in Dublin. I go home to be with my family and have a rest and so on. I don’t know anything about the Irish music scene, and I’ve never felt part of it.
123
124
I wasn’t close to my father, but I wanted to be all my life. He had a funny sense of humor, and he laughed all the time – good and loud, like I do. He was a gay Irish gentleman and very good-looking. And he wanted to be close to me, too, but we never had much time together.
125
126
127
London’s been really good to me – England as a whole – but the Scots and the Irish especially are very appreciative because that’s kind of where it all came from.
128
I am very proud to be Irish.
129
130
131
My dad’s from Zimbabwe, and my mom is Danish, Irish, and Norwegian, so I have influences from a lot of different places.
132
Songs with simple lyrics really take off in Irish nightclubs.
133
On my mum Marie‘s side, my nana was from the Republic of Ireland, and my granddad was from the north. Lots of families in Manchester have strong Irish connections, but it never occurred to me to play for anyone other than England.
134
135
I’m black and Cuban, Australian and Irish, and like most people in America, I’m someone whose roots come from somewhere else. I’m a mixed race, first-generation American.
136
Irish mythology is gorgeous, and so are the fairies, but they are very misrepresented in the U.K. They are not little creatures with wings.
137
138
139
I did a great deal of research to write ‘The Irish Duke.’ Since all the people in this Lords of the Realm series are real historical characters, everything had to be authentic. I researched Woburn Abbey, where my heroine lived, and everything about Barons Court in Ireland, which was the ancestral home of Abercorn.
140
141
142
143
Some people say to me, ‘You don’t sound very Irish.’ It’s because I have this tendency to iron out my accent: not because I’m ashamed of it but because it makes my life easier if I don’t keep having to repeat myself.
144
145
146
The Irish are just good people, they always have been.
147
148
Three-quarters of my family is Irish. Of course, the ‘Kazee’ is not.
149
150
151
152
The Danes and the Irish have a great simpatico, that’s for sure.
153
The strange thing is I can’t play jigs or reels or any of that traditional Irish stuff as well as I ought to, whereas I think I have got a good ear for blues, the tonality of it and so on.
154
155
156
157
I don’t see myself as either Irish or American, I’m a New Yorker.
158
My father was totally Irish, and so I went to Ireland once. I found it to be very much like New York, for it was a beautiful country, and both the women and men were good-looking.
159
160
161
I am delighted with the strong vote I have received. My message of positive leadership, patriotism and commitment clearly was resonating with tens of thousands of ordinary Irish people.
162
When Coach Mike Brey at Notre Dame was recruiting me, he was like, ‘There will be Irish on the front of the jersey; and Irish on the back of the jersey.’ But no one actually knows I am a citizen over there.
163
Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me.
164
Language is so important to the Irish, almost regardless of education.
165
I grew up in a big, blended Irish Catholic family just outside of Los Angeles.
166
I’m representative of 21st century Irish design, so I promote Irishness all over the world wherever I go.
167
168
169
170
171
172
My mom was a single mother. She had six siblings in a big Irish family, all descended from shanty Irish folks who arrived after the Famine. They settled along the Cuyahoga River. It’s the river that caught on fire. We’re real good at picking real estate.
173
I love battles. I think it’s part of the Irish in me.
174
175
If you ask me where do I belong, it would be somewhere in the Irish Sea almost – born in Hong Kong, Chinese mother, Portuguese father from Macao, lived in Europe most of my life.
176
177
There’s no such thing as the ‘Irish Internet.’ It’s just the Internet.
178
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.
179
Next to President of the United States, Ambassador to Ireland is surely one of the best jobs an Irish American can hold.
180
181
In this context the British and Irish governments will have to promote a new, imaginative and dynamic alternative in which both governments will share power in the north.
182
I think there’s nothing better than laughing in life, so that’s nice, to be thought of as someone who can make someone laugh. It’s ’cause I think life is hard. You know, my dad was a really silly man. A great Irish silly man. And that’s fine.
183
184
185
186
I made loads of English and Irish friends at university and all they wanted to do was have a good time.
187
188
189
190
There are writers, and I know some of them, who are very disciplined. Who write, like, four pages a day, every day. And it doesn’t matter if their dog got run over by a car that day, or they won the Irish sweepstakes. I’m not one of those writers.
191
192
My parents were both first-generation Irish Catholics raised in Brooklyn.
193
194
My mother is Italian and my dad’s Irish. In my family, we’re expressive. Nobody holds back.
195
I was Irish; I was a woman. Yet night after night, bent over the table, I wrote in forms explored and sealed by English men hundreds of years before. I saw no contradiction.
196
197
‘You’re Ugly Too’ isn’t a comedy, but it has a lightness of touch with a hard edge. But it’s essentially a warm story tinged with a bit of melancholy in the great Irish tradition. I’m very proud of that film.
198
199
200
201
Rain is also very difficult to film, particularly in Ireland because it’s quite fine, so fine that the Irish don’t even acknowledge that it exists.
202
I’ve always loved movies, so I tried to get into an acting school. I saw an ad for the Oscar school on the back of ‘The Irish Times,’ and I went along for an audition, very pragmatically, to see if I could do it or not.
203
Most of my jokes are racist – usually about the Irish.
204
Politics is the chloroform of the Irish people, or rather the hashish.
205
206
I grew up mostly with classical, big band, and a lot of Irish music – I really didn’t start listening to rock and roll until I was maybe sixteen.
207
208
209
210
211
People ask me where I’m from. I say Ireland, and they are like ‘Really? You don’t look Irish.’ Then you have to explain… people are intrigued, but sometimes you think, ‘Why do I have to tell my whole story every time I open my mouth?
212
213
214
I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.
215
My heritage is Scottish and a lot of Irish, too.
216
217
I have a thing for red-haired Irish boys, as we know.
218
219
220
221
222
There’s something about the Irish that is remarkable.
223
224
As far as Irish writers being great, I think the fact that there have been two languages in Ireland for a very long time; there has obviously been a shared energy between those two languages.
225
226
We have, therefore, directed the Irish Army authorities to have field hospitals established in County Donegal adjacent to Derry and at other points along the Border where they may be necessary.
227
228
I find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this.
229
230
231
I’m an Irish guy who loves his music.
232
233
If you are a Northern Irish actor, maybe subconsciously more than consciously, you do have an instinctive responsibility at some point to tackle the recent history of where we have come from. It’s not only a responsibility, but a privilege.
234
The first play I wrote was called ‘Twenty-five.’ It was played by our company in Dublin and London, and was adapted and translated into Irish and played in America.
235
236
237
I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn’t there before that.
238
The gun is not out of Irish politics.
239
Poets, I think, are born. You can’t teach it. It’s genetic – the circumstances of how you were raised… and there’s probably some Irish in your blood lines.
240
‘Philomena’ was even better than I had expected. I was so pleased to see the evil Irish nuns thoroughly exposed, and I thought Judi Dench gave a flawless performance, as did everybody else.
241
I come from an alcoholic Irish background – I know where I was going! But I met my wife and started to practise Buddhism, which is a levelling experience for me, and there hasn’t been a day I’ve missed in 40 years. I apply it to everything – to my work and relationships. I try to be a compassionate person.
242
I receive huge support from Irish and British sports fans alike and it is greatly appreciated. Likewise I feel I have a great affinity with the American sports fans. I play most of my golf in the U.S. nowadays and I am incredibly proud to have won the U.S. Open and U.S. PGA Championship in the last two years.
243
244
My Irish identity is important as it’s a part of who I am.
245
The characters in ‘Ray Donovan’ are not very articulate – we’re the worst Irish family you could ever live next to in L.A.
246
247
248
249
I was brought up Irish, where there was room for my own private world.
250
251
252
253
I went to Irish dance when I was four. I was playing the tin whistle when I was five. So I think certain things are bred into you.
254
London in the ’70s was a pretty catastrophic dump, I can tell you. We had every kind of industrial trouble; we had severe energy problems; we were under constant terrorist attack from Irish terrorist groups who started a bombing campaign in English cities; politics were fantastically polarized between left and right.
255
256
Theatre has no national identity. It is something for the world, whether it is Irish, English, or French.
257
258
I don’t buy into the idea that an Irish writer should write about Ireland, or a gay writer should write about being gay.
259
You can have Irish identity in the north and also have your Irish passport.
260
261
I wasn’t embraced as an Irish artist back in the Moloko days. Modern electronica isn’t what you think of when you think of Irish music.
262
263
Growing up with Bronx Irish parents during an era of protests against the status quo, I was especially committed to doing the opposite of what I was told to do. Forty-four years later, I am left with only one means of making a living: comedy.
264
265
Our Irish blunders are never blunders of the heart.
266
267
268
I have been interested in Irish traditional music for the past few years.
269
I am who I am: an Irish Catholic kid, working class from Long Island. And I made it big.
270
At Leeds I’ve tried to concentrate on my club form, but you get caught up in all the World Cup fever once you come back to Ireland and see all the Irish boys again.
271
My mother was very proud of being Irish and being a Gunnigan in a straightforward way.
272
Have you ever heard of Irish, Poles, Germans, Italians and Jews being integrated? They go anywhere and just enjoy their rights. Why call it integration when black folks do the same thing? It’s a con job.
273
274
In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.
275
I think people saw him as someone who did good things for Ireland. If you looked at all the Irish actors in ‘Excalibur’ alone – Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson – there was a whole gaggle of Irish actors who’ve gone on to become stars, so Dad was really part of that.
276
Our Family is deeply honoured to see the Irish Government taking this enormous interest in the development of the Kennedy Homestead Visitor attraction.
277
278
279
I think there’s something about the Irish experience – that we had to have a sense of humor or die.
280
All of my dad’s family, his brothers and sisters, my nana and grandad and all of the cousins emigrated to Australia within two years of each other. Irish families are close at the best of times, but when you move to the other side of the world, we were like a big posse over there.
281
There are hundreds of thousands of Scots who acknowledge English, Irish or Welsh parts of their very being. Lives and destinies are similarly intertwined in Catalonia and Spain, in Ukraine and Russia.
282
283
The novel space is a pure space. I’m nobody once I go into that room. I’m not gay, I’m not bald, I’m not Irish. I’m not anybody. I’m nobody. I’m the guy telling the story, and the only person that matters is the person reading that story, the target. It’s to get that person to feel what I’m trying to dramatize.
284
There might well have been an Irish great-great-grandfather of mine back then in the 1800s.
285
286
Irish Americans are no more Irish than Black Americans are Africans.
287
288
289
290
I’ve been really inspired by my roots – my ancestors and Irish history.
291
I believe in all of these Irish myths, like leprechauns. Not the pot of gold, not the Lucky Charms leprechauns. But maybe was there something in the traditional sense? I believe that this stuff came from somewhere other than people’s imaginations.
292
I’m Irish; I grew up in Ireland, and it’s impossible to separate my background from who I am as a filmmaker.
293
294
295
Being Irish means you belong to the clan. It’s what you feel. They feel Irish.
296
To marry the Irish is to look for poverty.
297
298
Growing up, I was brought up around Irish music, Irish traditions.
299
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.
300
301
302
I am Irish, so I do like a good fight every now and then.
303
304
305
My parents spent an awful lot of money sending me to the best possible schools, and I came out of my exams and thought, ‘I don’t really want to do a degree.’ I did philosophy with the Jesuits for about a year, and then I joined a bank. While I was there, I saw an ad in an Irish paper for radio announcers.
306
My last name is originally Irish. I’m not exactly sure whereabouts it’s from, but I’ve got family branches that were traced back there.
307
I made my final collection in college in London using Irish handwoven wool. That is how I discovered Ireland first; I just fell in love with it, really.
308
I’ve had support from all sides, from people who call themselves Irish, from Northern Irish, to the whole of the UK, to people in America, and it would be terrible for me to segregate myself from one of those groups that support me so much.
309
I like Guinness, and that will make anyone Irish. That and soda bread, and I’m good to go.
310
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.
311
I think that’s why you see so many Americans in Dublin look so sad: they are looking for the door through which they can begin to understand this place. I tell them, ‘Go to the races.’ I think it’s the best place to start understanding the Irish.
312
My father named me Kelli because ‘Kelli O’Hara’ just sounded so Irish.
313
I grew up in Manchester in a big Irish family – there are seven of us in all – so my life has always been about role-playing, about doing anything for a laugh. I’m always joking about; that’s the way I am.
314
Ninety percent I’ll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I’ll probably waste.
315
‘Ulysses’ is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.
316
My father was a typical Irish father. He was a nice, hard working, driven guy. His politics were very conservative and I was just a very different kind of kid to that. I was very shy and bookish.
317
318
319
320
321
322
In kindergarten, we had this Irish Catholic headmistress called Sister Leonie, and I remember she would tell us, say, to put the crayons in the box. I remember thinking, ‘Why is everyone finding this so easy? Why should the crayons be in the box?’
323
324
My mother’s Polish; my dad was Irish.
325
I’m from an Irish Catholic family.
326
327
When I started writing, most of the police department in New York City, especially above the rank of detective, were Irish, Irish-American. I thought it would be more interesting… to use the actual ethnic background in New York City at the time.
328
I don’t hate redheads! The millionaire men – wealthy men – never pick them. Every time I offer them they say no. I could say the most gorgeous redhead in the world and they’ll say no, they don’t want it. Now if you ask an Irish guy in Ireland, he says ‘yes,’ because that’s indigenous to that country.
329
I felt that the IRA, in the context of Irish history, and Sinn Fein were a legitimate force that had to be recognized, and you wouldn’t have peace without them.
330
331
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
332
My mom is Filipino and my dad is half Russian and half Irish.
333
334
I am an Irish person. I’m an Irishman, but I’m also an Ulsterman.
335
In Ehrenfeld, we were all jammed together. All the fathers were foreign-born – Welsh, Irish, Polish, Sicilian. We were so jammed together, we picked up each other’s accents. And we spoke some broken English. When I got into the service, people used to think I was from a foreign country.
336
This first-generation narrative keeps happening over and over and over again, whether it was Irish or Jewish or our community, South Asians, Japanese-Americans, Mexican-Americans. We’ve all gone through this sort of bridge, and it will continue to happen.
337
My mother is Irish, my father is black and Venezuelan, and me – I’m tan, I guess.
338
339
Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.
340
The presidency is an independent office and the Irish people whom I appreciate so much and I take with such responsibility have given a very clear mandate on a very clear set of ideas to me, as the ninth president.
341
I’ve gone into auditions, and I think they have an assumption about me when they see my photo, and then I open my mouth, and they say, ‘Where exactly are you from? And you were born in Ethiopia? But you’re Irish, but you also kind of sound English. That’s really strange.’
342
I’ve always been fond of my heritage, particularly my Irish heritage. But I’m also from all over the world.
343
Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.
344
345
I used to have an Australian accent for school and an Irish accent for home.
346
347
No one would ever cast me as an aristocrat. I think the big thing about being an Irish artist is access to melancholy. Especially the American Irish. The availability of loss, some kind of pain, is an important part of who we are. I think my Irishness gave me that.
348
349
350
To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.
351
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.
352
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.
353
How do you spell the name of the Irish prime minister? It sounds like ‘teeshuck’, but we spell it ‘taoiseach.’ We respect foreign spellings these days – a sign of our more egalitarian times, perhaps.
