A Quote by Nick Laird

If you grew up Protestant in Ireland, of course, at least in the twentieth century, there was always a contingent that would never really consider you Irish. Meanwhile in Britain you'd never quite be considered British. You fell into a gap in the definitions.

Nick Laird

Quote Topics

Always Britain British Century Consider Considered Contingent Course Definitions Fell Gap Grew Grew Up Ireland Irish Least Meanwhile Never Never Quit Protestant Quite Really Twentieth Twentieth Century Up Would

Quote Author

Nick Laird
Irish - Novelist
Born: 1975

'A Naval History of Britain' which begins in the 7th century has to explain what it means by Britain. My meaning is simply the British Isles as a whole, but not any particular nation or state or our own day... 'Britain' is not a perfect word for this purpose, but 'Britain and Ireland' would be both cumbersome and misleading, implying an equality of treatment which is not possible. Ireland and the Irish figure often in this book, but Irish naval history, in the sense of the history of Irish fleets, is largely a history of what might have been rather than what actually happened.

Nicholas Rodger

The twentieth century had produced a literature in Ireland that kept a tense distance from the sources of faith - and for good reason. Irish writing had suffered a terrible censorship in the twentieth century.

Eavan Boland

British rule depends upon repression and collaboration and the Irish people should recognise that those who collaborate with Britain in exchange for a slice of the cake will implement British policy and remain silent when Irish people are murdered and oppressed. It is they who are responsible for prolonging the war in Ireland. Without the quislings, without the collaborators, we would already have reached freedom.

Martin McGuinness

One of the problems that comes up time and time again seems to be this notion of being 'pure' Irish. If you are Protestant, born in the Northern part of the island and deeply into the Protestant tradition, that somehow does not make you a legitimate Irish person. Yet there is a huge British influence in parts of the South.

Ian McElhinney

I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland. That is my background and always will be.

Rory McIlroy

I am a proud product of Irish golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland and am hugely honoured to have come from very rich Irish sporting roots... I am also a proud Ulsterman who grew up in Northern Ireland. That is my background and always will be.

Rory McIlroy

When my family moved from Ireland in the 70s, Britain was such a difficult place to be Irish. It was a decade of real social and economic upheaval in Britain. There were strikes, the three-day week, the oil crises, huge inflation, the winter of discontent and, what was it, four Prime Ministers? And relations between Britain and Ireland at that time were at an all-time low. I was born in the year of Bloody Sunday and of course the pub bombings happened in the mid-1970s.

Maggie O'Farrell

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

As a member of the Protestant British squirearchy ruling Ireland, he was touchy about his Irish origins. When in later life an enthusiastic Gael commended him as a famous Irishman, he replied "A man can be born in a stable, and yet not be an animal.

Duke of Wellington

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.

James Surowiecki

The reality of life in Northern Ireland is that if you were Protestant, you learned British history, and if you were Catholic, you learned Irish history in school.

James Nesbitt

Ireland is a peculiar society in the sense that it was a nineteenth century society up to about 1970 and then it almost bypassed the twentieth century.

John McGahern

I was never that kid who grew up in New York and was always at the arthouse watching important films. I was the kid who grew up in the Midwest where there weren't any art films, and I watched TV. And that was really the medium that affected me and that I fell in love with.

Shawn Ryan

From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced, that while it lasted, this country would never be free or happy. In consequence, I determined to apply all the powers which my individual efforts could move, in order to separate the two countries.

Theobald of Bec

Eternal is the fact that the human creature born in Ireland and brought up in its air is Irish. I have lived for twenty years in Ireland and for seventy-two in England; but the twenty came first and in Britain I am still a foreigner and shall die one.