I feel myself part of something. Not only being part of a community but part of an actual moment and a movement of Irish writing and art. That sense of being part of the whole thing is the deepest joy.
She had been born with a different name, to a woman with laughing eyes and warmly whispered words of love who’d died degraded and afraid on a misty Irish morning.
Me and Johnny Rotten have been talking about doing a movie of his book, No Irish, No Dogs, No Blacks. We have a script, so hopefully that's going to happen at some point in our careers.
There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.
At Leeds I've tried to concentrate on my club form, but you get caught up in all the World Cup fever once you come back to Ireland and see all the Irish boys again.
I've got many different voices - I have a Southern girl, an Irish girl. I have a gibberish language that you'd have to decipher. I guess I try to never take myself too seriously.
Again and again, I find something eerie in many Irish occasions - the unrelenting whiteness, the emotional tribal attachments, the violent prejudices lurking beneath apparently pleasant social surfaces, the cosy smugness of belonging.
It's not that I don't like American pop; I'm a huge admirer of it, but I think my roots came from a very English and Irish base. Is it all sort of totally non-American sounding, do you think?
It was in a stonecutter's house where I went to have a headstone made for Raftery's grave that I found a manuscript book of his poems, written out in the clear beautiful Irish characters.
I don't feel I have to defend myself for being English or for being Irish, because, in a way, I don't feel either. And, in another way, of course, I'm both.
The fact is, I've always felt more British than Irish. Maybe it was the way I was brought up, I don't know, but I have always felt more of a connection with the U.K. than with Ireland.
When I was a senior in high school, I went to Ireland to study Irish Gaelic. And after one semester at Trinity College, I went way out to the west coast of Ireland and rented a little house by myself.
For a man to come right out and say he does not believe in the Old Testament, I think many Catholics across the nation as well as the world are offended by Bill O'Reilly claiming he's an Irish Catholic.
Growing up in an old-fashioned Bengali Hindu family and going to a convent school run by stern Irish nuns, I was brought up to revere rules. Without rules, there was only anarchy.
To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.
I am not in the business of pointing fingers or making excuses. However, recent history has shown that I, like thousands of others in Ireland, incorrectly relied upon the persons who guided Anglo and who wrongfully sought to portray a 'blue chip' Iri...
The Georges were fair; they left all to the Government; but Anne was very bad and a tyrant. She tyrannised over the Irish. She died broken-hearted with all the bad things that were going on about her. For Queen Anne was very wicked; oh, very wicked, ...
I remember the '70s constantly being winter in Manchester and the Irish community in Manchester closing ranks because of the IRA bombings in Birmingham and Manchester, and you know the bin-workers' strike, all wrapped up in it... They were violent ti...
There are writers, and I know some of them, who are very disciplined. Who write, like, four pages a day, every day. And it doesn't matter if their dog got run over by a car that day, or they won the Irish sweepstakes. I'm not one of those writers.
For every successful actor or actress, there are countless numbers who don't make it. The name of the game is rejection. You go to an audition and you're told you're too tall or you're too Irish or your nose is not quite right. You're rejected for yo...
I live in Dublin, God knows why. There are greatly more congenial places I could have settled in - Italy, France, Manhattan - but I like the climate here, and Irish light seems to be essential for me and for my writing.
