Irish Literature Quotes

“If Niall could see Marianne, he would say: don’t tell me. You like her. It’s true she is Connell’s type, maybe even the originary model of the type: elegant, bored-looking, with an impression of perfect self-assurance. And he’s attracted to her, he can admit that. After these months away from home, life seems much larger, and his personal dramas less significant. He’s not the same anxious, repressed person he was in school, when his attraction to her felt terrifying, like an oncoming train, and he threw her under it.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“In life, we all have a cross to bear and a unique story to tell. We just hope that someone will take the time to listen.”
― Greg McVicker, Through the Eyes of a Belfast Child: Life. Personal Reflections. Poems.

“There are a hundred faults in this Thing and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.”
― Oliver Goldsmith

“Go on now and I’ll see you from this day stewing my oatmeal and washing my spuds, for I’m master of all fights from now.”
― J.M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World

“England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales might have been partners in an imperial project that required the projection of 'English Literature' as one of the defining elements of cultural superiority that justified the continuous extension of Empire throughout the nineteenth century, but they were also engaged in an internal struggle over the origins and the dynamics of that literature, and about the role of their national literatures within the consolidating discipline of English.”
― Cairns Craig, The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture and Independence

“the whole worl's in a state o' chassis”
― Seán O'Casey, Juno And the Paycock

“Yes, things endure, while the living lapse.”
― John Banville, The Sea

“Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self. And incredulity, that too was a large part of being happy, I mean that euphoric inability fully to believe one's simple luck.”
― John Banville, The Sea

“Rather than seeing a contest between druid and Christian, I see a kinship between stone chapel and stone circle.”
― Kate Horsley, Confessions of a Pagan Nun

“He watched me at first but then looked away.
"Would it be a major bereavement for you if I died?" I said.
"The most major one I can think of, yeah."
"Nobody else would grieve.”
― Sally Rooney, Mr Salary

“Death was, of course, the most ordinary thing that could happen, at some level I knew that. Still, I had stood there waiting to see the body in the river, ignoring the real living bodies all around me, as if death was more of a miracle than life was.”
― Sally Rooney, Mr Salary

“He stooped to the evil of hypocrisy with others, sceptical of their innocence which he could cajole so easily.”
― James Joyce, A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man

“For a tiny speck in the Atlantic, Ireland has made an outsize contribution to world literature. It's a legacy we can all be proud of, one that would take many pages (or indeed a whole library of books) to recount in full.”
― Rashers Tierney, F*ck You I'm Irish: Why We Irish Are Awesome

“Half the time, in this life, you wouldn't know where you are nor when. There are moments of unpleasant liveliness. Tamp that the fuck down is best.”
― Kevin Barry

“He sleeps a long, unquiet sleep disturbed by quick dreams of woodland places. These come as no great surprise. He meets elves and sprites and clowning devils. Anxiety? He wakes at last to a new world and to a morning lost in heavy mist. Sorely his bones ache - he traces the length of the soreness with a long, dull, luxurious sighing. Which is very pleasant, as it happens. Though also he feels about ninety fucking six.”
― Kevin Barry, Beatlebone

“I don't believe he was ever dhrunk in his life - sure he's not like a Christian at all!”
― Seán O'Casey, Juno And the Paycock

“Rashers, me heart, if it was raining soup, you'd have nothing but a fork.”
― James Plunkett, Strumpet City

“And my life is changed forever.
But then, at what moment, of all our moments, is life not utterly, utterly changed, until the final, most momentous change of all?”
― John Banville, The Sea

“I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Beauty is not valuable if poor people share it with you. That's how it is, in Dublin, and probably in most other places as well.”
― Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Pale Gold of Alaska and Other Stories

“They must wait. The gates were closed. The keys that could open them were in other hands.”
― James Plunkett, Strumpet City

“Rather than seeing a contest between druid and Christian, I see a kinship between stone chapel and stone circle. One encloses and protects the spirit; the other exposes it and joins it with the elements.”
― Kate Horsley

“There is no wise writing without a wise reader.”
― Orna Ross, After the Rising

“...[W]hile language came readily to Tess when dealing with herself alone, having one-way conversations over all of her choices on her long walks in the woods, or on her way to school, now she no longer tabled these discussions with her husband.”
― Elaine Feeney, How to Build a Boat

“Wicklow's Bounty: Ode to the Irish Strawberry by Stewart Stafford

The Garden County's ruby hue;
Juicy gush with tart aftertaste,
Seeded cream teases the palate,
A Summer afternoon without haste.

Eireann's pride swallowed so well;
Sunburst flesh, chilled bitterness,
Enveloped in richest dairy pillows,
Feel the divine fingerprint finesse.

Amass nature's brief treasures,
Don't wait, dear brother/sister,
Before frosted breath chokes,
Turning land's song into a whisper.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“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.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Quando parla con Marianne ha una sensazione di riservatezza condivisa. Di sé potrebbe raccontarle tutto, perfino le cose più strane, e lei non andrebbe mai a spifferarlo, questo lo sa. Essere solo con lei è come aprire una porta e chiudersi alle spalle la vita normale. Non ha paura di lei, che in realtà è una persona piuttosto tranquilla, ma teme la sua vicinanza per via del modo sconcertante in cui si ritrova a comportarsi, per le cose che dice, e che di norma non direbbe mai.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“The Larktown Savannah by Stewart Stafford

Pierce the smog-shrouded end of town,
A wheezing, mirthless, blushing clown,
On the river, logs and sticks past me flew,
Ingredients of a swirling, brownish stew.

In the bait shop, the condemned crawl,
A carvery pub lunch next door for all,
The old cinema’s lights are long-dimmed,
A long grass lion’s zebra crossing skimmed.

Seagulls bomb the blustery bridge;
To the water, as to sunset, the midge;
An Elvis impersonator’s sparse crowd tell—
Rhinestone saviour in Wharf Street’s hotel.

© 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford