You’re Irish aren’t you? You were born with an opinion. Fifty Dead Men Walking 2008 starring Jim Sturgess & Ben Kingsley & Rose McGowan & Kevin Zegers & Kris Edlund & Natalie Press & Paschal Friel et al, her to him
It’s got to be done. I dream that one day we’ll walk as free men in our own country. The British have made us into their poor stupid cousins. ibid. IRA bloke
I do solemnly swear that to the best of my ability I will support and defend that government of the Irish Republic … The Wind that Shakes the Barley 2006 starring Cillian Murphy & Padraic Delaney & Liam Cunningham & Orla Fitzgerald & Laurence Barry & Mary O'Riordan & Myles Horgan & Martin Lucey & Roger Allam et al, director Ken Loach, oath
There’s one thing I don’t understand – them Yanks that pretend to be Irish. What’s that all about, hmm? As if being American wasn’t bad enough. Al Murray, Pub Landlord: And a Glass of White Wine for the Lady, London Playhouse 2011
Britain had promised Ireland home rule. But the First World War shelved all that. Two hundred thousand Irishmen – Protestants and Catholics – would fight for Britain. About thirty thousand of them would die. But the Irish Republican Brotherhood – forerunners of the IRA – believed England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. The First World War: Revolution, Channel 4 2003
Germany had long seen subversion in Ireland as a way to destabilising Britain. ibid.
Germany’s high command got cold feet and refused to commit an invasion force. But in April 1916 Zeppelin raids did take place. ibid.
But now the British made a terrible blunder throwing away their moral authority and turning the Easter Uprising into the seminal event of Irish statehood. ibid.
Ireland 530 A.D. 962 years before Columbus ... Saint Brendan the Navigator had a vision of paradise. Legend says he found it, and it was America. Who Really Discovered America? History 2010
Ireland – here the Protestant Reformation had made no headway. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 5/8: Lost Worlds & New Worlds, BBC 2012
In Ireland, England began a policy of plantations. ibid.
On the streets of Dublin, Cromwell is still a swearword. Michael Wood, The Great British Story VI: A People’s History 6/8: The Age of Revolution
In 1919 the Irish War of Independence – the Anglo-Irish War – brought the end of British rule after more than three centuries. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 8/8: Modern Britain
For a century and a half there had been an entrenched English colony in east and north Ireland, often safe only in castles ... A bitter civil war broke out between native Irish supporters of both sides. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Nations, BBC 2000
Say hello to the Antichrist across the Irish Sea. The target of Cromwell’s march through blood was an army of royalists holding out in Ireland in the name of King Charles ... This was Cromwell’s war crime. An atrocity so hideous it contaminated Anglo-Irish history ever since. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Revolutions
Cromwell treated Ireland like the primitive colony he thought it was. ibid.
In March 1689 James landed in Ireland with 20,000 French troops. The Catholic Irish flocked to their King. Like the English they had become pawns in someone else’s chess game ... Two armies, two worlds faced each other across the River Boyne. ibid.
Britain was vulnerable where it had always been: Ireland. Irish Republicans had been among the friends of Revolution at White’s Hotel. They had dreamed of a great uprising against the English. But for the dreams to come true an insurrection had to coincide with a French invasion. The French did come, but they came too late, and on the wrong coast. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Forces of Nature
After June 1847 to get any kind of relief you had to prove you were at the very bottom of the heap ... Now they were faced with a terrible choice: either turn in that land to the landlords to get poor relief or stay put and starve. It was no choice at all. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The Empire of Good Intentions
Tenants who tried to stay were forcibly evicted. ibid.
It would be many generations before Ireland’s population would recover to the numbers before the potato blight struck. ibid.
More than a third of the total population of Ireland. It was perhaps the greatest peacetime calamity in all of nineteenth century European history. And it happened not just on the doorstep of the richest country in the world but inside our own house. ibid.
This phase of Cromwell’s life was to bring him lasting infamy in so many parts of Ireland and the British Isles. On 4th September 1649 Cromwell’s fearsome New Model Army made an assault on the Royalist held town of Drogheda. The English Civil War IV: The Shadow of the Scaffold
Behind him Oliver Cromwell left a lasting legacy of bitterness and hatred in Ireland that endures to this very day. ibid.
Oliver Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland in 1649 has become notorious in Irish history. It’s regarded as a clear sign of the cruelty of the English. Professor Jeremy Black
In truth Cromwell did much harm and little good in Ireland. C H Firth, historian
Later on he [Cromwell] and other English politicians ruled Ireland with a rod of iron. Dr Peter Gaunt
Cromwell’s lasting reputation as a butcher here in Ireland rests on his wholesale killing of the garrison and also on the charge that he ordered the murder of unarmed civilians. The story about the civilians is a myth ... But there’s no doubt about the slaughter of the garrison. Great Britons: Cromwell, BBC 2002
England has never ruled Ireland in any other way, and cannot rule it in any other way, except by the most hideous reign of terror and the most revolting corruption. Karl Marx
The declaration of any subject is a right that you have brought into the world with your heart and tongue. Resign your heart’s blood before you part with this inestimable privilege of man. Percy Bysshe Shelley, An Address to the Irish People
Read your own hearts and Ireland’s present story,
Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley’s glory. Lord Byron, Don Juan
Freshly blows the wind homewards: my Irish child, where are you dwelling? Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, 1865
The well of poisons brims over in the East. Giraldus Cambrensis aka Gerald of Wales, c.1146-c.1223, The History and Topography of Ireland
The clergy of this country are on the whole to be commended for their observance. Among their other virtues chastity shines out as a kind of special prerogative. ibid.
Shame. Shame. We all worked for what we had. And we worked for everything. We made the country, my generation and the generations before. And this crowd went with a begging bowl to Europe. I’m so ashamed of the state we’re in, and it’s all through greed ... We had pride. Breda Thunder, interview Fergal Keane, Panorama: How to Blow a Fortune, BBC 2011
The thing he proposes to buy is that cannot be sold – liberty. Henry Gratton, 1746-1820, Irish nationalist
Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile
The cause, or the men, of the Emerald Isle. William Drennan, 1754-1820
I met wid Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand,
And he said, ‘How’s poor ould Ireland, and how does she stand?’
She’s the most disthressful country that iver yet was seen,
For they’re hangin’ men an’ women for the wearing’ o’ the Green. ballad 1795
It will drive a coach and six horses through the Act of Settlement. Stephen Rice, 1637-1715, Irish lawyer
The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots. Sydney Smith
‘God save Ireland!’ said the heroes;
‘God save Ireland,’ say they all:
Whether on the scaffold high
Or the battlefield we die,
Oh, what matter when for Erin dear we fall. Timothy Daniel Sullivan, 1867 song
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go;
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square,
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s not there. Jack Judge and Harry Williams, 1912 song