40 Inspiring Quotes About Ireland

Ireland, a land of enchanting landscapes, rich history, and vibrant culture, has inspired countless individuals across the globe. From its lush green hills to its lively cities, Ireland evokes a sense of wonder and warmth. To celebrate this magical country, we've gathered a collection of 40 inspiring quotes that beautifully capture the essence of Ireland. These words, penned by poets, writers, and dreamers, offer a glimpse into the heart and soul of the Emerald Isle. Whether you're a lover of Irish lore or simply in search of a touch of inspiration, these quotes promise to transport you to a land where myths abound and the spirit of the people shines brightly. Join us on this journey through words and discover the timeless allure of Ireland.

1. “The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.” - James Joyce

2. “Out of Ireland have we come. Great hatred, little room,Maimed us at the start.I carry from my mother's wombA fanatic heart.” - William Butler Yeats

3. “I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.” - Iris Murdoch

4. “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.” - Thomas Moore

5. “Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.” - Frank Harte

6. “A face on him as long as a hare's back leg.” - Myles na gCopaleen

7. “The heart of an Irishman is nothing but his imagination” - George Bernard Shaw

8. “Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. A country without a language is a country without a soul.” - Pádraig Pearse

9. “The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.” - William Butler Yeats

10. “In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting. In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.I liked the Irish way better.” - C.E. Murphy

11. “A ógánaigh...ná brisan ghloine ghlan'tá eadrainn(ní bhristear gloinegan fuil is pian)óir tá Neamhnó Ifreann thall'gus cén mhaith Neamhmura mairfidh ségo bráth?ní Ifreanngo hIfreanniar-Neimhe...(Impí)” - Caitlín Maude

12. “They'd listen silenty, with grave faces: but once they'd turn to each other they'd smile cruelly. He couldn't have it both ways. He'd put himself outside and outside they'd make him stay. Neither brutality nor complaining could force a way in.” - John McGahern

13. “Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.” - W.H. Auden

14. “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 shall walk across an hour or two thence, and it is green and silken to my eye, and the clouds have begun their slow, fat rolling journey across the sky, no land in the world can inspire such love in a common man.” - Frank Delaney

15. “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, 'if it comes to that, no God for Ireland!''John! John!' cried Mr Dedalus, seizing his guest by the coat sleeve. Dante stared across the table, her cheeks shaking. Mr Casey struggled up from his chair and bent across the table towards her, scraping the air from before his eyes with one hand as though he were tearing aside a cobweb. 'No God for Ireland!' he cried, 'We have had too much God in Ireland. Away with God!” - James Joyce

16. “An cinniúnt, is dócha: féach an féileacán úd thall atá ag foluain os cionn mo choinnle. Ní fada go loiscfear a sciatháin mhaiseacha: cá bhfios dúinne nach bhfuil a fhios sin aige, freisin?” - Pádraic Ó Conaire

17. “My heart is quite calm now. I will go back.” - James Joyce

18. “I still don't know why we didn't hire a carto get around Ireland.""When I was a kid, I always dreamed about living in Ireland. I used to pretend I was one ofthe traveling people, driving my gypsy wagon from village to village. Used to picture a darkgypsy kidnapping me and having his way with me. Exciting stuff." Katy grinned at her. "Couldstill happen, you know.""Katy, we have a horse that's so laid-back I have to keep checking to see if he's dead.” - Nina Bangs

19. “Beatha- do Mháire Mhic Amhlaoibh,An Fál Mór, Co. Mhaigh Eo. - Níor airigh tú caint ar an slabhcán? - arsa Mary Nell le hiontas,an slabhcán a bhailíodh sí ina gearrchaile diar charraigreacha an Fháil Mhóir,a thugadh sí abhaileis a ghearradh go mion, é a bhruith ainsin le deoirín uisce.Nuair a d'fhuaraíodh sé dhéanadh sí leac - an blas a bhíodh air leis an ngráinne salainn!Níor bhlais Mary Nell an slabhcán le dhá scór bliain:- Ní bhadrálann éinne thart anseo a thuilleadh leis,Róleitheadhach atá siad.Ach an stuif sin a bhíonns ag fear an tsiopaI bpotaí beaga a thigeann sé, dath pinc air - 'Yoghurt?'- Yoghurt. Yoghurt!M'anam go liveálfainn ar an stuif sin.M'anam go liveálfainn air. - ” - Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin

20. “Grey morning dulled the bay. Banks of clouds, Howth just one more bank, rolled to sea, where other Howths grumbled to greet them. Swollen spumeless tide. Heads that bobbed like floating gulls and gulls that floating bobbed like heads. Two heads. At swim, two boys.” - Jamie O'Neill

21. “The host is rushing 'twixt day and night,And where is there hope or deed as fair?Caoilte tossing his burning hair,And Niamh calling Away, come away.” - W.B. Yeats

22. “For the increase in the number of my Brennan cousins," Conall remarked dryly, "we must thank the potato.” - Edward Rutherfurd

23. “I believe hurling is the best of us, one of the greatest and most beautiful expressions of what we can be. For me that is the perspective that death and loss cast on the game. If you could live again you would hurl more, because that is living. You'd pay less attention to the rows and the mortgage and the car and all the daily drudge. Hurling is our song and our verse, and when I walk in the graveyard in Cloyne and look at the familiar names on the headstones I know that their ownders would want us to hurl with more joy and more exuberance and more (as Frank Murphy used to tell us) abandon than before, because life is shorter than the second half of a tournament game that starts at dusk.” - Dónal Óg Cusack

24. “...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.” - David Willis McCullough

25. “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 of the sun, the twinkling of the stars. Our human brain searched for an answer, and the conclusion was that it all must be caused by something greater than ourselves - this, of course, sprouted the earliest seeds of religion. This theory is certainly reflected in faery lore. In the beautiful sloping hills of Connemara in Ireland, for example, faeries were believed to have been just as beautiful, peaceful, and pleasant as the world around them. But in the Scottish Highlands, with their dark, brooding mountains and eerie highland lakes, villagers warned of deadly water-kelpies and spirit characters that packed a bit more punch.” - Signe Pike

26. “And he got going from there to America. Worked his passage, I s'pose, like a lot more. And I heard he did well in America, too. Got married there. Had a family. But never came back. And you know why? 'Cause if he did, if he ever set foot in Ireland again, you know who'd be waiting for him, don't you?That's right. The three of 'em. And their box. And the second time they'd make no mistake.It is a much-overlooked fact that not all of the thousands who fled Ireland in former times did so to escape hunger, deprivation, and persecution. There were also those who went to escape the wrath of the Good People. Many stories illustrated this, the one here being typical.” - Eddie Lenihan

27. “Then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; and the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down the names of the immortals,’ and at his words a look of great joy came into her face. Presently she, began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though she knew she had but a little while to live, and, in English, with the accent of their own country; and she told them the secret names of the immortals of many lands, and of the colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and instruments of handicraft they held dearest; but most about the immortals of Ireland and of their love for the cauldron, and the whetstone, and the sword, and the spear, and the hills of the Shee, and the horns of the moon, and the Grey Wind, and the Yellow Wind, and the Black Wind, and the Red Wind. ("The Adoration of the Magi")” - W.B. Yeats

28. “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 said magnificent things when it came to Ireland, India and America. One of them was in some ways a revolutionary conservative and the other was a conservative revolutionary. It's important to try and contain multitudes. One of my influences was Dr Israel Shahak, a tremendously brave Israeli humanist who had no faith in collectivist change but took a Spinozist line on the importance of individuals. Gore Vidal's admirers, of whom I used to be one and to some extent remain one, hardly notice that his essential critique of America is based on Lindbergh and 'America First'—the most conservative position available. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.” - Christopher Hitchens

29. “I was born Katie O’Reilly,” she began. “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” - Jina Bacarr

30. “Iar gclos báis Mháirei dtuairim cháich má fágbhadh m'ainnir faoi fhód,níor bhuadhaigh bás ar Mháire im mheabhair-se fós.” - Pádraigín Haicéad

31. “I heard you went to Ireland...I haven't seen it in many years. Is it still green then, and beautiful?Wet as a bath sponge and mud to the knees but, aye, it was green enough.” - Diana Gabaldon

32. “I try to clutch onto those last moments in the place that I was born to, but I was so busy *living* them! How was I to know I'd have to capture everything I ever wanted to remember of Eire for the rest of my life?” - Kate McCafferty

33. “Be just before you are generous.” - James Joyce

34. “She took the sea with herNot beaches but the greyrelentless Irish sea,its rhythm and the crying gulls.” - Caroline Davies

35. “Ireland is but an island off the coast of Cape Clear.” - Chuck Kruger

36. “Fookin' Irish, they're a race of political masochists, they love their fookin' chiefs and princes an' a strong hand belting. It's like the man said in the play, Abair and focal republic i nGaoluinn?” - Gwyneth Jones

37. “Romantic Ireland's dead and goneIt's with O' Leary in the grave(September 1913)” - William Butler Yeats

38. “Just remember, it's an easy place to be at home in, Ireland. I think the people are very skilled at relating. I notice, watching the different nationalities on the mountain, the fluidity of interaction the Irish people have with the visitors, and with each other. It's a skill that's less developed in other nationalities, and it's so instinctive it doesn't even look like a skill.” - Pete McCarthy

39. “But once you cross the Shannon - even though geographically you have only come a short distance - different rules of time apply, and most people still understand the crucial secret of human happiness: that it's better to do a few things slowly, than a lot of things fast.” - Pete McCarthy

40. “It wasn't that I didn't feel like sharing. Mostly I just figured they couldn't do anything about it, so there was no point in worrying them. I said, 'A wee little bit,' instead, in honor of being in Ireland, where one adjective was never enough if three would do.” - C.E. Murphy