…early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an armed camp at perpetual war with its neighbors, and every farmer claims he is a king.

It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.

The politicians looked after the mandarins. The mandarins looked after the central bankers and the regulators. (The governor of the Central Bank was paid more in 2008 than the chairman of the US Federal Reserve,...

You aren’t meant to be a prisoner. You’re powerful and incredible.” “You’ve no’ seen me in dragon form.””I don’t have to. I see the man before me now.

Iar gclos báis Mháirei dtuairim cháich má fágbhadh m’ainnir faoi fhód,níor bhuadhaigh bás ar Mháire im mheabhair-se fós.

Happy now? That fiery enough for you?

So does nobody care about Ireland?””Nobody. Neither King Louis, nor King Billie, nor King James.” He nodded thoughtfully. “The fate of Ireland will be decided by men not a single one of whom gives a...

I think a lot of us who grew up in Northern Ireland weren’t politicised enough, frankly.

Out of Ireland have we come. Great hatred, little room, Maimed us at the start.

When I come out on the road of a morning, when I have had a night’s sleep and perhaps a breakfast, and the sun lights a hill on the distance, a hill I know I...

A face on him as long as a hare’s back leg.

Books of the sages of the ages reflect upon in stages; like honey their words on the tongue give due savour.”{Source: A Green Desert Father}

Bí ann nó astáimse ag triall Ortagus má tácuirim geasa Ortmé a shábháilón dreama deirgur fear fuarsa spéir Thú.

She drank in the sight of him, the power, the virility, the sheer sexiness. She knew just how well those lips of his kissed, how gentle and coaxing his hands could be, and how mouth-watering...

The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and...

But I wasn’t creeping.

The Irish were poor, but not enslaved. He had come here to hack away at the ropes that held American slavery in place. Sometimes it withered him just to keep his mind steady. He was...

It’s a complicated relationship with the place one grows up in, particularly if it’s Northern Ireland.

Cad é an mhaith dom eagla a bheith orm? Ní shaorfadh eagla duine ón mbás, dar ndóigh.

To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.

Since Ireland’s independence declaration was a century older, I could not be sure if his self-evident truths meant as much as they would in America.

… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having...

It’s just very homey in Ireland. It’s very comforting and comfortable. There’s lots of fireplaces with fires. It’s just really cozy.

Ready yourselves!’ Mullone heard himself say, which was strange, he thought, for he knew his men were prepared.A great cry came from beyond the walls that were punctuated by musket blasts and Mullone readied himself...

…I live in Ireland every day in a drizzly dream of a Dublin walk…

…twenty.” – Faolán MacIntyre

Emerald Isle” because there are lots of precious stones found there, such as sapphires and rubies.

Northern Ireland has treated me well, you know?

Cowan son of Branieucc, you’re the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.

No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression.

How to Write with Style”. Essay, 1985)

Don’t become a grumpy old dater! Life ids for living, laughing and loving!Stop searching, start finding!

Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to...

What do we do if we come across trouble, sir?’ Cahill asked, slapping at a fly. ‘As much as I enjoy giving the rebel turds a walloping, it should be down to the Militia to...

History is an amazing presence–it is the place where vanished time gathers. While we are in the flow of time, it is difficult to glean its significance, and it is only in looking back that...

Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.

I make my way back whistling. Gerry nods towards Mrs Brady who is standing beside the trolleys.Morning, Mrs Brady, I say cheerfully.I push her provisions out to the car.Things are something terrible, she says. You...

Unification is less important than the fact Ireland is now conflict-free.

Go back to bed, Cowan. I want no promises from you.

There had been a time, until 1422, when a number of both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish students attended Oxford and Cambridge in England. But fellow students had complained that Irish living together in large numbers sooner...

dirty” before, I will compare it with dynamite in your ovaries. They say it with like, seven Rs.

In prehistoric times, early man was bowled over by natural events: rain, thunder, lightning, the violent shaking and moving of the ground, mountains spewing deathly hot lava, the glow of the moon, the burning heat...

Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there.

God and religion before every thing!’ Dante cried. ‘God and religion before the world.’ Mr Casey raised his clenched fist and brought it down on the table with a crash.’Very well then,’ he shouted hoarsely,...

The History of Ireland in two words: Ah well. The Invasion by the Vikings: Ah well. The Invasion by the Normans. The Flight of the Earls, Mr Oliver Cromwell. Daniel O’Connell, Robert Emmett, The Famine,...

THAT crazed girl improvising her music.Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,Her soul in division from itselfClimbing, falling She knew not where,Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declareA beautiful lofty...

We were following Scotland rather than playing our own game and imposing our style on them and mastering them. We have to have a good analysis of the game before we play Ireland and work...

Poor Irish, but proud of it. I boarded the Titanic at Queenstown as a third class passenger with nothing more than the clothes on my back. And the law at my heels.” Titanic Rhapsody

A nation which fails to adequately remember salient points ofits own history, is like a person with Alzheimer’s. And that can be asocial disease of a most destructive nature.

This book tells my story. I’m writing it in Ireland, in a house on a hillside. The house sits low in the landscape between a holy well and the site of an Iron Age dwelling....