We want him to be the last British Prime Minister with jurisdiction in Ireland.

-Adams, Gerry (Gerard)
  On Tony Blair. In The Irish Times, 8 Oct.

Let us reunite ourselves with our better mind and with the world through science; and let it be one of our angelic revenges on the Philistines, who among their other sins are theguiltyauthors of Fenianism, tofound at Oxford a chair of Celtic, and to send, through the gentle ministration of science, a message of peace to Ireland.

-Arnold, Matthew
  'On the Study of Celtic Literature'.

   You were silly like us: your gift survived it all; 40 The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  'In Memory of  W.B.Yeats', pt.2.

   Whose fault is it if poor Ireland still continues poor?

-Berkeley, George
  The Querist, pt.3.

For the great Gaels of Ireland Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
Ballad of the White Horse, bk.2.

Here, in the west of Ireland, the Romans had never marched, tramp, tramp, tramp: had never fortified a camp: had never built a well-ordered, sensible, useful road. It was a land where common sense and an orderly way of life were unknown. Hercule Poirot looked down at the tips of his patent- leather shoes and sighed. He felt forlorn and very much alone. The standards by which he lived were here not appreciated.

-Christie, Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa ne¤  e Miller
  The Labours of Hercules.

This monstrous mixture of imbecility, extravagance and political hysteria, better known as the Bill for the future government of Irelandöthis farrago of superlative nonsense, is to be put in motion for this reason and no other: to gratify the ambition of an old man in a hurry.

-Churchill, Lord Randolph Henry Spencer
  Pamphlet attacking Gladstone's Home Rule Bill,  Jun.

Thinköwhat I have got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years.Will

-Collins, Michael
Italian-born  US  astronaut  who  as  a  crew  member  of  Apollo 11 piloted  the  spacecraft  during  its  historic mission  to  the  moon (1969).  He orbited the  moon  alone in  the  command unit  while Neil  Armstrong  and Buzz  Aldrin  made  the  first  manned  lunar landing.

Ireland is one of the few countriesöperhaps the lastöwhere the boundaries between politics and art have never been fixed.

-Dangerfield, George
  The Strange Death of Liberal England.

Consider Ireland. Thus you have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Churchöand in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.

-Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
  Speech, House of Commons,16 Feb.

   Those enemies to Irelandöthose cruel absentees!

-Edgeworth, Maria
  Count O'Halloran. The Absentee, ch.8.

I never met anyone in Ireland who understood the Irish question, except one Englishman who had been there only a week.

-Fraser, Major Sir Keith Alexander
  House of Commons, May.

Nobody can't do nothing never at all for Irelandöyou can't help people against their will; that's what it comes toölet it go, let it go.

-Freeman, Edward Augustus
  Letter to Edith Thompson, 29  Jan.

Ireland never was contented† Say you so? You are demented. Ireland was contented when All could use the sword and pen, And whenTara rose so high That her turrets split the sky, And about her courts were seen Liveried Angels robed in green, Wearing, by St. Patrick's bounty, Emeralds big as half a county.

-Landor,Walter Savage
  'Ireland never was contented'.

   Give it because it isright.Give it because it is just.Give it because it isgood for Ireland and good for the United Kingdom.Give it because it brings peace and good will, but do not give it because you are bullied byassassins.

-Lloyd George (of Dwyfor), David, 1st Earl
  Speech on an Irish settlement, Caernarvon, 9 Oct.

'Tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too.

-Meredith, George
  Diana of the Crossways, ch.2.

   And now the curse has come upon us, because I have personally met in the streets of Ireland persons who are clearly out of Synge's plays. They talk and dress like that, and damn the drink they'll swally but the mug of porter in the long nights after Samhain.

-Cruise
  The Best of Myles.

The best thing about the violence in Northern Ireland is that it's all so ancient and honorable† The Irish are in the same terrific position as the Shiites in Lebanon, the peasants in El Salvador, the blacks in America, the Jews in Palestine, the Palestinians in Israel (and everybody everywhere, if you read your history)öenough barbarism has been visited on the Irish to excuse all barbarities by the Irish barbarians.

-O'Rourke, P(atrick) J(ake)
  Holidays in Hell.

The government may tomorrow withdraw every one of their troopsfrom Ireland.Ireland will be defended by her armed sons from foreign invasion, and for that purpose the armed Catholics in the south will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulsterman. Is it too muchtohope that out of thissituation a result mayspring that will be good not merely for the Empire but for the future welfare and integrity of the Irish nation?

-Redmond,John Edward
  Speech, House of Commons, 3 Aug.

One of the great advantages of Ireland as a place of residence is that a large number of excellent people never go there.

-Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
  Ludovic.TheWatched Pot, orThe Mistress of Briony.