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Irish History Quotes

Browse 23 quotes about Irish History.

Irish History Quotes

“Women and children were not afforded the rights of citizenship, of subjecthood, of being. They lived under threat of being erased, hidden, buried. This is why my mother tells me - halting, hesitating - that in her day it was the worst thing in the world for a girl to find herself pregnant, but worse still was for her to talk about it.”

PregnancyWomens RightsForgettingComplicityIrish HistoryUnmarried WomenSilencing WomenMagdalene Laundries
Book:In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History
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“We know that now. Vehicles of transportation include, according to the scholar of memory studies Marianne Hirsch, "narratives, actions and symptoms." The stories we tell and don't tell, the actions we take and don't take, the symptoms expressed by a mother holding the trauma tightly to herself, because she refused to burden her children with it.”

MemoryStorytellingFamily HistorySilencingHealing TraumaGenerational TraumaIrish HistoryUnburdeningBiological Trauma
Book:In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History
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“There is evidence to support claims that 962 years prior to Columbus setting foot in the Bahamas, Saint Brendan, an Irish monastic priest known as “Saint Brendan the Navigator,” looked for the “Isle of the Blessed.” What island he found has been lost to history and is still unknown; however, legend names it “Saint Brendan’s Island.” Many believe that in his journeys across the Atlantic Ocean he actually landed in America in 1150, or 342 years prior to Columbus’ discovery.” Note: Saint Patrick ’s Day was the day of my parent’s anniversary.”

DiscoveryCaptain Hank BrackerIrish HistorySeastoriesDiscovering America
Author:Captain Hank Bracker, "The Exciting Story of Cuba"
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“Stuck In One's Craw by Stewart Stafford Nobody's beeswax,' still, you nosily ask: 'Is it the last supper to eat that fast?' Try blackened potato skin's bitter taste, A heritage of hunger's grim, gaunt waste. From Celtic mist, this heir apparent, My grandparent's grandparent(s), Survived Ireland's holocaust famine, As a local catch, not New World salmon. Crop blight drove their starving plea, With lots cast bleak to die or flee Genetic appetite fed the strongest, Those who eat fastest live longest. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

Social JusticeTraumaDark HumorCultural IdentityElegyIrish HistoryIrish LiteraturePotato FamineHistorical PoetryIrish Famine
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“On St. Patrick's Day, the traditional Irish family would rise early and find a solitary sprig of shamrock to put on their somber Sunday best. Then they'd spend the morning in church listening to sermons about how thankful they should be that St. Patrick saved such a bunch of ungrateful sinners. Nobody wore green clothing as it was considered an unlucky color not suitable for church.”

Irish HistorySt Patrick S DayIrish HumorIrish Trivia
Book:F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome
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“A Magnum Paucity by Stewart Stafford Build the nation's mausoleum, Light the people's funeral pyre, For Hibernia's sons and daughters, In genocide to expire. Romantic Ireland has no grave, It died foraging at the roadside for bites, Or on a coffin ship out of reach of the New World, An empire's boot on the throat for last rites. Did you know your identity all along? Or find it struggling and aghast? Old Eireann was the first expendable colony, And egregiously, not Britannia's last. Constricting stomachs do not growl patriotic oaths, Freedom is a stranger to a starved mind, Force-feed our children grapes of wrath, With liberation dead on the vine. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

HistoryIrelandStarvationFamineBritish EmpireIrish HistorySt Patrick S DayPotato FamineThe IrishEmigration And Immigration
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The power that created me would not have given me such a capacity for feeling pleasure if I weren't meant to use it, Evleen whispered to the man who sat rapt beneath her touch. Your religion wants dominion over our bodies because sex is the one ecstasy they can't control, and they are threatened by any rapture other than that they offer.”

Women S StrengthIrish HistoryWomen S Sexuality
Book:Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas
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“In the 1870s it was estimated that a third of all the money in the Irish economy came from money sent by kindhearted Irish servant girls to their families. The Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank in New York alone would send more than $30 million to Ireland between 1850 and 1880. Many families in Ireland owed their survival to what they gratefully called the "American Letter," a lifeline that helped them cope with brutal poverty and lack of opportunity.”

IrishIrishmenIrish WriterIrish HistoryIrish AmericaIrish Women
Book:F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome
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“Whether serving in the military, building industry, organizing politically, or making their way in any other part of American culture, the Irish were determined to create a free and prosperous life for themselves. This Irish-American struggle led to social and political progress for all Americans.”

Irish HistoryIrish AmericaIrish Culture Irish In American
Book:F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome
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“Cork-born Mother Jones was renowned as a dramatic orator who relished props, curses, and all kinds of attention-getting tactics--sound at all Irish to you? She exaggerated her age, referring to strikers not too much younger than herself as "my boys" and donning frumpish costumes to emphasize her "motherly appearance.”

IrishIrishmenIrish WriterIrish HistoryIrish AmericaIrish In America
Book:F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome
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“Nellie Cashman, from Midleton, County Cork, made a mint providing "bed, board, and booze" to the gold and silver miners all over the western US and Canada. She was a prodigious entrepreneur, running and owning numerous stores, restaurants, and hotels in various mining settlements. While working the bar of her hotel, canny Nellie was able to buy a number of very lucrative mines by discretely listening to the gossip of drunken prospectors.”

IrishmenIrish WriterIrish HistoryIrish AmericaIrish WomenIrish In AmericaIrish In The West
Book:F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome
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“Mr.s Kennedy toiled as a domestic servant and used her savings to start a notions and stationery store, which she gradually and skillfully expanded. Bridget's hard work and sacrifice, making her way as a widow in a strange land, established the funds her son P.J. Kennedy used to finance his liquor business. This enterprise was to become the basis of the family's future progress and put Bridget's descendants on a path that dazzled America and forever changed the political scene.”

Irish HistoryIrish AmericaIrish WomenIrish In America
Book:F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome
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