Kevin Meagher > Quotes

“A young Vietnamese man working in a London hotel as a dishwasher watching events in Ireland unfold, as rebels made their bid for freedom in what became the War of Independence following the rising, was moved to remark on the death of Republican hunger striker Terence MacSwiney that ‘a country with a citizen like this will never surrender’.1 His name was Ho Chi Minh, and he would go on to emulate the guerrilla warfare tactics developed in Ireland as he took on the might of the United States’ war machine in the Vietnam War.”
― Kevin Meagher, A United Ireland: Why Unification Is Inevitable and How It Will Come About

“Indisputably, Margaret Thatcher had a jaundiced view of the Irish. Perhaps Peter Mandelson’s vignette about meeting her soon after he was appointed Northern Ireland Secretary in 1999 sheds some light: She came up to me and she said, ‘I’ve got one thing to say to you, my boy.’ She said, ‘You can’t trust the Irish, they’re all liars. Liars, and that’s what you have to remember, so just don’t forget it.’ With that she waltzed off and that was my only personal exposure to her.”
― Kevin Meagher, A United Ireland: Why Unification Is Inevitable and How It Will Come About

“The question is not ‘whether’ the economics of Irish unity work; they do. The outstanding issue is encouraging the politics to catch up.”
― Kevin Meagher, A United Ireland: Why Unification Is Inevitable and How It Will Come About

“Dispassionate, hard-nosed commerce will gradually develop a single Irish economy, whether the politicians drive the agenda or not. This,”
― Kevin Meagher, A United Ireland: Why Unification Is Inevitable and How It Will Come About