You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence. Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice.

It seemed pathetic and terrible to me and it still does, that men and women work eight hours a day at jobs that bring them no joy, no reward save a few dollars.

Now if we allow our living language to die out, it is almost a certainty that we condemn our literary records to remain in obscurity.

No life if it is properly realized is without its cosmic importance.

We must put pressure upon our politicians not to snuff out by their tacit discouragement merely because they do not happen to understand it.

One of the greatest satisfactions one can ever have, comes from the knowledge that he can do some one thing superlatively well.

I – and there are hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who felt on this subject as I do – have always liked my Celtic countrymen and disliked the English nation; it is a national trait...

As our language wanes and dies, the golden legends of the far-off centuries fade and pass away. No one sees their influence upon culture; no one sees their educational power.

A DUP demand for the humiliation of republicans is not only unacceptable, it will not happen and it has no place in a process of peace making.

I do not share the wish to see my language dead and decently buried.

Against mighty odds you held the line and faced down a huge military foe, the British Crown Forces and their surrogates in the unionist death squads.

Every crag and gnarled tree and lonely valley has its own strange and graceful legend attached to it.

I understand fully that the IRA’s most recent positive contribution to the peace process was in the context of a comprehensive agreement.

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.

The IRA is being used as the excuse by them all not to engage properly in the process of building peace with justice in Ireland.

How many wives have been forced by the death of well-intentioned but too protective husbands to face reality late in life, bewildered and frightened because they were strangers to it!

The Ireland we live in today is also very different place from 15 years ago. There is now an all-Ireland agenda with huge potential.

If a person goes to his job with a firm determination to give of himself the best of which he is capable, that job no matter what it is takes on dignity and importance.

Under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement, parties have to vote for the nominees for the joint office of the First and Deputy First Ministers.

It is not serving, but servility, that is menial.