I was born in the island of Ireland. I have Irish traits in me - we don't all have the traits of what came from Scotland, there is the celtic factor. . . and I am an Irishman because you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman
In the vast majority of cases the secret society symbolism hearkens from two places - Ireland and Egypt.
My grandfather was a really, really tough no-nonsense factory worker who emigrated from Ireland in about 1900 to Bridgeport, Conn. He had a big effect on me. Those guys who took a great leap out into what they knew not were the ones who were the real stars, the real heroes.
People think we are such great talkers, but there is so much silence in Ireland about certain issues.
My relationship to all my family in Ireland is more to family as a whole. It wasn't that we had a very specific one-on-one relationship.
If you grew up Protestant in Ireland, of course, at least in the twentieth century, there was always a contingent that would never really consider you Irish. Meanwhile in Britain you'd never quite be considered British. You fell into a gap in the definitions.
I like the idea of people having romantic tendencies towards a place they don't know that well. I think it's great. Why not? My dad's view of New York is very similar to Americans' when they talk about Ireland.
Give Ireland back to the Irish, don't make them have to take it away.
The need for peace in Northern Ireland goes well beyond political stability. It now speaks to regional Europe and even global stability.
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
Whose fault is it if poor Ireland still continues poor?
Ireland has made its choice for the future and it has chosen the version of Irishness it will build. I know, and I will work with head and heart to be part of it with all of you in creating that future one in which all of us can be part of and part of us too.
I'm 78, I'm on my pension in Ireland, and all that good stuff
The trouble with the Irish question always has been that it was an English question.
Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.
Ireland has a role to play in making the E. U. united and strong.
Obviously one of the things that poets from Northern Ireland and beyond - had to try to make sense of was what was happening on a day-to-day political level.
The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.
I must say that though other days may not be so bright, as we look toward the future, that the brightest days will continue to be those we spent with you here in Ireland.
I think Scotland's got its own issues, in some ways similar to Northern Ireland with sectarianism, which has been a long-running sore. All the issues of land ownership, development resources, poverty, alcoholism and violence, all these things.