A Quote by Mary Robinson

I felt when I was elected that the most important task on this island [Ireland] was to extend the hand of friendship right across the board to the people of Northern Ireland, to have the beginnings of a real peace process. In consequence, although I have no role in intergovernmental talks or political discussions, that would be my very top priority.

Mary Robinson

Quote Topics

Across Although Beginnings Board Consequence Discussions Elected Extend Felt Friendship Hand Important Ireland Island Most Northern Northern Ireland Peace Peace Process People Political Priority Process Real Right Role Talks Task The Most Important Top Very Would Would Be

Quote Author

Mary Robinson
Irish - President
Born: May 21, 1944

That feeds anger, and I mean when we went and at last thank heavens got towards peace in Northern Ireland we went for justice within Northern Ireland as well as using security well, as well as a political settlement, but surely that is the lesson.

Clare Short

My point is there's a hidden Scotland in anyone who speaks the Northern Ireland speech. It's a terrific complicating factor, not just in Northern Ireland, but Ireland generally.

Seamus Heaney

When people are faced with a choice between the Northern Ireland they have got and the perfect Northern Ireland, they complain. But in the real world that isn't the choice.

John Reid

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

Queen Elizabeth II

Because Scotland and Northern Ireland want to remain part of the E.U., there is the quite real possibility that Scotland and even Northern Ireland might now choose to go their own way on membership within the E.U. and the 'United Kingdom' would suddenly effectively be only England and Wales.

Peter Bergen

Northern Ireland has a unique place in the Union. As the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement enshrined in law, the people of Northern Ireland can be British, Irish or neither.

David Lidington

Only the political process offers the real prospect of a united Ireland at peace with itself.

John McDonnell

People were so keen to get investment. In those days, there was quite significant unemployment in Northern Ireland, and that had been the general pattern in Northern Ireland for many, many years.

John Hume

I was walking across King's Cross station when a drunken Irishman came stumbling up and flung his arms around me. He wanted to thank me for the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Ann Widdecombe

My father was from Northern Ireland, and coming from somewhere like that, your faith defines you. That's something we don't really understand outside Northern Ireland, but because of my parents and grandparents, I've experienced it.

Anna Maxwell Martin

Both the U.K. and the E.U. have made a sincere commitment to the people of Northern Ireland: there will be no hard border. Equally, as a U.K. government, we could not countenance a future in which a border was drawn in the Irish Sea, separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

David Lidington

I am very sure of the ground I stand on. I am also very sure that it is the path shared by republicans across this island genuinely interested in building a new agreed Ireland: republicans who put Ireland before ego, criminality, and self-gain.

Martin McGuinness

The country I live in is never clear about its name. My passport says 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,' and citizens of the U.K. may call themselves British, English, Scottish, Welsh or from Northern Ireland.

Gavin Esler

Since the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland wants to remain a part of Great Britain, and since Ireland itself has shown little interest in reunification, the IRA's prospects for success through political channels have always been limited.