The Essential Wisdom of the Irish

By Fall River Press

The Irish people are well known for their rich tradition of oral and written wisdom that has left an indelible mark on history for more than 1,500 years. Their words embody a unique perspective on life with all its challenges, triumphs, and tragedy.

The Essential Wisdom of the Irish gathers together hundreds of unforgettable quotations from an extraordinary group of men and women—both Irish and Irish American—from all walks of life. The selections are arranged thematically and reflect a wide variety of subjects that are universal in some respects and singular in others.

In this book:

• Oscar Wilde opines on the meaning of love
• Patrick Pearse reflects on the price of freedom
• Jonathan Swift comments on the true nature of genius
• Brendan Behan offers his wry insights into Anglo-Irish relations
• Bono speaks passionately about ending poverty
• Maria Edgeworth extols the value of hope

Still other contributors include Eamon de Valera (“Whenever I wanted to know what the Irish people wanted, I had only to examine my own heart and it told me straight off what the Irish people wanted.”), John F. Kennedy (“In politics you have no friends, only allies.”), George Bernard Shaw (“The surest way to ruin a man who doesn’t know how to handle money is to give him some.”), Edna O’Brien (“The vote, I thought, means nothing to women. We should be armed.”), and James Joyce (“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”).

Enhanced with a chronology of important events in Irish history, this moving collection celebrates not only the Irish people but also their legendary tenacity, eloquence, wit, and wisdom.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fall River Press
• Release date: Feb 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781435139107

Book preview

What does it mean to be Irish? Writers and scholars through the centuries have offered varying interpretations that touch on such ideas as sharing a kinship with Ireland and her struggles; having a deeply abiding faith (particularly in the Catholic or Protestant traditions); possessing traits such as a self-deprecating sense of humor; having the gift of gab; being a born storyteller, or standing strong in the face of adversity.

In The Essential Wisdom of the Irish, hundreds of quotations from and about the Irish people have been gathered together to offer some additional insight into what it means to be Irish. The contributors come from all walks of life and are as diverse as the selections themselves. There are writers and scholars; politicians and journalists; patriots and leaders; artists and entertainers. Though the majority of contributors, of course, hail from Ireland, there is also a grouping of Irish-American contributors interspersed as well. What Irish-Americans have to say about their own version of the Irish experience adds, in my view, a richness that speaks for itself.

The themes that emerge are universal in some respects and singular in others. There is the fierce love of family; the enduring quest for freedom; and the struggle to withstand every form of adversity—including poverty, famine, political oppression, and religious persecution. In the selections that follow, William Butler Yeats extols the Irish contributions to literature and political intelligence; George Bernard Shaw reflects on the stark, physical beauty of the Irish landscape; Edna O’Brien offers keen insight into the Irish character; and Oscar Wilde and James Joyce ponder the connection between life and literature.

In other selections Irish patriots such as Michael Collins, James Connolly, Eamon de Valera, Robert Emmet, Patrick Pearse, and Wolfe Tone speak passionately about the cause for Ireland’s freedom. Still other selections reveal the personal triumphs and struggles that the contributors faced in their own lives. Daniel O’Connell reflects on his long and happy marriage; Eamonn McCann describes the chaos in Belfast at the height of the Troubles; Kerry Kennedy reveals the central role of the Catholic faith in her family; and Tip O’Neill shares an invaluable lesson he learned early in his political career. Rounding out the collection is a sampling of Irish songs, proverbs, blessings, and a wee bit of Irish humor.

So whether you’re looking to reconnect with your own Irish roots, or are simply interested in learning more about this ancient people, The Essential Wisdom of the Irish is a rich testament to the men and woman who have embodied the spirit of endurance, tenacity, and hope through the ages, and who continue to leave a singular mark on the world in every field of endeavor.

CAROL KELLY-GANGI

Rumson, New Jersey, 2011

Your wits can’t thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You’ve no such colours in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh the dreaming! The dreaming! The torturing, heart scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, John Bull’s Other Island, 1904

O Ireland, isn’t it grand you look—

Like a bride in her rich adornin’?

And with all the pent-up love of my heart

I bid you the top o’ the mornin’!

—JOHN LOCKE, The Exile’s Return, or

Morning on the Irish Coast, 1877

Land of Heart’s Desire,

Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,

But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song.

—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, The Land of Heart’s Desire, 1903

This island is a region of dreams and trifles.

—GEORGE BERKELEY, The Querist, 1735

Whenever I dream, it seems I dream

Of Erin’s rolling hills—

All its lovely, shimmery lakes

And little babbling rills—

I hear a colleen’s lilting laugh

Across a meadow fair

And in my dreams it almost seems

To me that I am there—

O, Ireland! O, Ireland!

We’re never far apart

For you and all your beauty

Fill my mind and touch my heart.

—E. GARY BROOKS

In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.

—JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY, quoted in Mahaffy by

W. B. Stanford and R. B. McDowell, 1971

The graceful Georgian streets and squares, a series of steel engravings under a wet sky.

—SHANA ALEXANDER, Dublin Is My Sure Thing,

LIFE Magazine, September 1966

Dublin with its wide central street, its statues and its time-darkened buildings, has a dignity such as one associates with some of the southern towns in the United States—a dignity of memories and of manners. Its squares, its railed-in areas, its flights of steps, its tall houses of brick richly-coloured as wine, give it the air of a splendid relic of the eighteenth century. It is unforgettably a capital.

—ROBERT LYND, Home Life in Ireland, 1909

Dublin, on the east, the Europe-regarding, coast of Ireland, owes her vitality and complexity as a city to a continuous influx of foreign life. The invader, the trader, the opportunist, the social visitor have all added strife or colour.

—ELIZABETH BOWEN, Collected Impressions, 1950

Oh, Limerick is beautiful

As everybody knows,

And by that city of my heart

How proud old Shannon flows.

—MICHAEL SCANLON

Irish countrysides are so different from each other that it is not easy to find an interpreting word which will cover them all. Still, there is one thing which gives a unity—a personality, as it were—to Ireland.