Irish Inspirational Quotes

Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.

Maybe your country is only a place you make up in your own mind. Something you dream about and sing about. Maybe it's not a place on the map at all, but just a story full of people you meet and places you visit, full of books and films you've been to. I'm not afraid of being homesick and having no language to live in. I don't have to be like anyone else. I'm walking on the wall and nobody can stop me.

We survive. We're Irish. We have the souls of poets. We love our misery, we delight in the beauty of strange places and dark places in our hearts.

Behind her gentle character, the strength of armor was found.

I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the fist time I never think about the last

If you don't fight to keep the man whom you claim to love. Then you deserve to loose him.

Blind ambition drives the foolish, while the soul directs the wise.

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers-- Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours--your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

Breakfast! My favorite meal- and you can be so creative. I think of bowls of sparkling berries and fresh cream, baskets of Popovers and freshly squeezed orange juice, thick country bacon, hot maple syrup, panckes and French toast - even the nutty flavor of Irish oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Breaksfast is the place I splurge with calories, then I spend the rest of the day getting them off! I love to use my prettiest table settings - crocheted placemats with lace-edged napkins and old hammered silver. And whether you are inside in front of a fire, candles burning brightly on a wintery day - or outside on a patio enjoying the morning sun - whether you are having a group of friends and family, a quiet little brunch for two, or an even quieter little brunch just for yourself, breakfast can set the mood and pace of the whole day. And Sunday is my day. Sometimes I think we get caught up in the hectic happenings of the weeks and months and we forget to take time out to relax. So one Sunday morning I decided to do things differently - now it's gotten to be a sort of ritual! This is what I do: at around 8:30 am I pull myself from my warm cocoon, fluff up the pillows and blankets and put some classical music on the stereo. Then I'm off to the kitchen, where I very calmly (so as not to wake myself up too much!) prepare my breakfast, seomthing extra nice - last week I had fresh pineapple slices wrapped in bacon and broiled, a warm croissant, hot chocolate with marshmallows and orange juice. I put it all on a tray with a cloth napkin, my book-of-the-moment and the "Travel" section of the Boston Globe and take it back to bed with me. There I spend the next two hours reading, eating and dreaming while the snowflakes swirl through the treetops outside my bedroom window. The inspiring music of Back or Vivaldi adds an exquisite elegance to the otherwise unruly scene, and I am in heaven. I found time to get in touch with myself and my life and i think this just might be a necessity! Please try it for yourself, and someone you love.

She'd made life poignant for the Irish. The terror she inspired gave peace its serenity; the pain she caused gave health its lustre; her failure to love made me grateful for my ability to do so, and I realized, far too late, that though I never did or could have loved her as she might have wished, I should have loved her more.

Sure and you've got to keep your own spitis up, for there's no one else will do that for you!

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day. May songbirds serenade you every step along the way. May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue. And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.  An Irish Blessing

I just wish she knew that if there were two persons, who were imperfect and they knew it, and they weren’t afraid to admit it – if those two persons cared enough about one another to lean upon one another, they’d be stronger together than they were separately – like a flying buttress and a cathedral wall.

…I claim that the ancient Irish system possessed pre-eminently two characteristics: first, freedom of the individual, and secondly, an adequate inspiration. Without these two things you cannot have education, no matter how well you may elaborate educational machinery, no matter how you may multiply educational programmes.

...everybody, every single person, has a story to tell. Every single ordinary person has an extraordinary story. We might all think that we are unremarkable, that our lives are boring, just because we aren't doing ground-breaking things or making headlines or winning awards. But the truth is we all do something that is fascinating, that is brave, that is something we should proud of.

The child's heart beat: but she was growing in the wrong place inside her extraordinary mother, south of safe...she and her mother were rushed to the hospital, where her mother was operated on by a brisk cheerful diminutive surgeon who told me after the surgery that my wife had been perhaps an hour from death from the pressure of the child growing outside the womb, the mother from the child growing, and the child from growing awry; and so my wife did not die, but our mysterious child did...Not uncommon, an ectopic pregnancy, said the surgeon...Sometimes, continued the surgeon, sometimes people who lose children before they are born continue to imagine the child who has died, and talk about her or him, it's such an utterly human thing to do, it helps deal with the pain, it's healthy within reason, and yes, people say to their other children that they actually do, in a sense, have a sister or brother, or did have a sister or brother, and she or he is elsewhere, has gone ahead, whatever the language of your belief or faith tradition. You could do that. People do that, yes. I have patients who do that, yes... One summer morning, as I wandered by a river, I remembered an Irish word I learned long ago, and now whenever I think of the daughter I have to wait to meet, I find that word in my mouth: dunnog, little dark one, the shyest and quietest and tiniest of sparrows, the one you never see but sometimes you sense, a flash in the corner of your eye, a sweet sharp note already fading by the time it catches your ear.

Love revealed, love laid down, love spent.

The capacity to love isn't finite. It's a growing, expanding gift from God that only grows larger and fuller with use.

Requiems for the Departed contains seventeen short stories, inspired by Irish mythology, from some of the finest contemporary writers in the business.

Though we are the fair ones, women are not to be trifled with!

Irish and Italian kids were taught in Catholic schools that the Jews killed Jesus Christ. Such teachings encouraged anti-Semitism. Gangs of Catholic boys would seek revenge on Jewish kids.

She let her mind drift, thinking about new lingerie designs, wishing she'd brought along her sketchpad. Inspiration could strike at the most inconvenient times--in the shower, in the car, on this road--but she was grateful it was with her again, an old companion with whom she was getting reacquainted, pleased to find they could take up where they'd left off, as if there'd been no estrangement at all.

My son asks... Father, am I Australian or Syrian? You are a unique blend of both son, never allow anyone to dictate that you must choose one, when you are simply cherished with both. Only open minded people will accept and more importantly understand, that you can certainly be both Australian and Syrian/Greek/Indian or Irish simultaneously. Your blood is nourished by the water you consume, the two are inseparable...

Medeiros managed to alienate the heart of the archdiocese, the mostly Irish and Italian working class of Boston, by ordering that any student suspected of being part of the “white flight” to avoid court-ordered desegregation of the city’s public schools was not to be allowed into Catholic schools. Medeiros’s directive was largely ignored. The archdiocese’s schools swelled in numbers, and many Boston Catholics swelled in resentment, seeing Medeiros as unfairly judging them as racist when many simply wanted to avoid the chaos of busing that no one in the wealthy suburbs had to endure. Thomas

When Italians and then Poles and other Eastern Europeans followed the Irish, they became part of an American Catholic Church that was, in essence, an Irish church. As Boston Globe reporter Maureen Dezell noted in her book Irish America: Coming into Clover, 90 percent of men enrolled in American seminaries in the latter half of the nineteenth century had Irish names, while by 1900 three quarters of the American Catholic hierarchy was Irish. (Even by the 1990s, when Hispanics emerged as the biggest ethnic group in the American Catholic Church, and the Irish made up only 15 percent of the laity, a third of the priests and half of the American bishops were of Irish descent.)

With its rapidly increasing population, religious and royal wars, Irish ethnic cleansing, and fear of rising crime, Britain excelled among the European imperial powers in shipping its people into bondage in distant lands. An original inspiration had flowed from small-scale shipments of Portuguese children to its Asian colonies before the Dutch supplanted the Portuguese as the world's premier long-range shippers. Vagrant minors, kidnapped persons, convicts, and indentured servants from the British Isles might labor under differing names in law and for longer or shorter terms in the Americas, but the harshness of their lives dictated that they be, in the worlds of Daniel Defoe, "more properly called slaves." First in Barbados, then in Jamaica, then in North America, notably in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, bound Britons, Scots, and Irish furnished a crucial workforce in the Americas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1618, the City of London and the Virginia Company forged an agreement to transport vagrant children. London would pay £5 per head to the company for shipment on the Duty, hence the children's sobriquet "Duty boys." Supposedly bound for apprenticeship, these homeless children—a quarter of them girls—were then sold into field labor for twenty pounds of tobacco each.

The essentialist notion of “bad blood” is one of several biological metaphors inspired by a fear of the revenge of the cradle. People anticipate that if they leave even a few of a defeated enemy alive, the remnants will multiply and cause trouble down the line. Human cognition often works by analogy, and the concept of an irksome collection of procreating beings repeatedly calls to mind the concept of vermin.105 Perpetrators of genocide the world over keep rediscovering the same metaphors to the point of cliché. Despised people are rats, snakes, maggots, lice, flies, parasites, cockroaches, or (in parts of the world where they are pests) monkeys, baboons, and dogs.106 “Kill the nits and you will have no lice,” wrote an English commander in Ireland in 1641, justifying an order to kill thousands of Irish Catholics.107 “A nit would make a louse,” recalled a Californian settler leader in 1856 before slaying 240 Yuki in revenge for their killing of a horse.108 “Nits make lice,” said Colonel John Chivington before the Sand Creek Massacre, which killed hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho in 1864.109 Cankers, cancers, bacilli, and viruses are other insidious biological agents that lend themselves as figures of speech in the poetics of genocide. When it came to the Jews, Hitler mixed his metaphors, but they were always biological: Jews were viruses; Jews were bloodsucking parasites; Jews were a mongrel race; Jews had poisonous blood.110

Because we were raised in a bigoted and hate-filled home, we simply assumed that calling someone a “cheap Jew” or saying someone “Jewed him down” were perfectly acceptable ways to communicate. Or at least we did until the day came when I called one of the cousins, a Neanderthal DeRosa boy, “a little Jew,” and he told me he wasn’t the Jew, that I was the Jew, and he even got Helen and Nana to confirm it for him. It came as a shock to me to find out we were a part of this obviously terrible tribe of skinflint, trouble-making, double-dealing, shrewdly smart desert people. When Denny found out, he was crestfallen because he had assumed that being Jewish meant, according to what his former foster family the Skodiens had taught him, a life behind a desk crunching numbers. “And I hate math,” he said, shaking his head. So here we were, accused Jews living in a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Not a good situation. Walter’s father was the worst. Learning about our few drops of Jewish blood seemed to ignite a special, long-held hatred in him. He became vile over nothing, finding any excuse to deride the Jews in front of us until Helen made him stop. We didn’t know what to make of it, except to write it off as another case of Wozniak-inspired insanity, but as young as we were, we could tell that at some point in his life he had crossed swords with a Jew someplace and came out on the losing end and we were going to pay for it. But because we really didn’t feel ourselves to be Jews, it didn’t sink in that he intended to hurt us with his crazy tirades. As I said, it’s hard to insult somebody when they don’t understand the insult, and it’s equally hard to insult them when they out and out refuse to be insulted. Word got around quickly.

In fact, properly speaking, no parish priest has any convictions on politics. At the back of his mind, he regards the state as an enemy that has usurped the temporal power of the Pope. Being an enemy, the state must be exploited as much as possible and without any qualms of conscience. Because of this innate and perhaps unconscious hostility to the state as an institution, the parish priest cannot see that it is the duty of a citizen to endeavour to make political life as morally clean as possible. He cannot see that the community as a whole must always come into the forefront of every citizen's political consciousness and that personal interests must be sacrificed to the interests of the nation. No. The parish priest regards himself as the commander of his parish, which he is holding for His Majesty the Pope. Between himself and the Pope there is the Bishop, acting, so to speak, as the Divisional Commander. As far as the Civil Power is concerned, it is a semi-hostile force which must be kept in check, kept in tow, intrigued against and exploited, until that glorious day when the Vicar of Christ again is restored to his proper position as the ruler of the earth and the wearer of the Imperial crown. This point of view helps the parish priest to adopt a very cold-blooded attitude towards Irish politics. He is merely either for or against the government. If he has a relative in a government position, he is in favour of the government. If he has a relative who wants a position and cannot get it, then he is against the government. But his support of the government is very precarious and he makes many visits to Dublin and creeps up back stairs into ministerial offices, cajoling and threatening. He is most commonly seen making a cautious approach to the Education Office, where he has all sorts of complaints to lodge and all sorts of suggestions to make. Every book recommended by the education authorities for the schools is examined by him, and if he finds a single idea in any of them that might be likely to inspire thought of passion, then he is up in arms at once. Like an army of black beetles on the march, he and his countless brothers invade Dublin and lay siege to the official responsible. Woe to that man.

the phrase comes to him before the emotion; but we must add that he is nevertheless a born writer, a man who detests meals, servants, ease, respectability or anything that gets between him and his art; who has kept his freedom when most of his contemporaries have long ago lost theirs; who is ashamed of nothing but being ashamed; who says whatever he has it in his mind to say, and has taught himself an accent, a cadence, indeed a language, for saying it in which, though they are not English, but Irish, will give him his place among the lesser immortals of our tongue.

Some of you reading this will relate to

Gladstone is remembered for putting the nation’s finances in good order, for establishing the chancellorship of the exchequer as the second post in the government, for his love of liberty and close sympathy for the peoples of subject nations (including the Irish), for his advocacy of international arbitration, and his preference for pursuing a peaceful, non-expansionist foreign policy. He became a hero to many people both inside and outside the Liberal Party, and proved an inspiration to generations of Liberal, and later Labour, politicians. Inevitably, however, with the passage of years his memory has faded, and there are nowadays perhaps only a few veterans of the Liberal Democratic Party who feel any personal affinity with him.

Expressive association In the United States, expressive associations are groups that engage in activities protected by the First Amendment – speech, assembly, press, petitioning government for a redress of grievances, and the free exercise of religion. In Roberts v. United States Jaycees, the U.S. Supreme Court held that associations may not exclude people for reasons unrelated to the group's expression. However, in the subsequent decisions of Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, the Court ruled that a group may exclude people from membership if their presence would affect the group's ability to advocate a particular point of view. The government cannot, through the use of anti-discrimination laws, force groups to include a message that they do not wish to convey. However, this concept does not now apply in the University setting due to the Supreme Court's ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), which upheld Hastings College of Law policy that the school's conditions on recognizing student groups were viewpoint neutral and reasonable. The policy requires student organizations to allow "any student to participate, become a member, or seek leadership positions, regardless of their status or beliefs" and so, can be used to deny the group recognition as an official student organization because it had required its members to attest in writing that "I believe in: The Bible as the inspired word of God; The Deity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, God's son; The vicarious death of Jesus Christ for our sins; His bodily resurrection and His personal return; The presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration; [and] Jesus Christ, God's son, is Lord of my life." The Court reasoned that because this constitutional inquiry occurs in the education context the same considerations that have led the Court to apply a less restrictive level of scrutiny to speech in limited public forums applies. Thus, the college's all-comers policy is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the student organization forum.

The Irish Blessing May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand. May God be with you and bless you: May you see your children's children. May you be poor in misfortune, Rich in blessings. May you know nothing but happiness From this day forward. May the road rise up to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home And may the hand of a friend always be near. May green be the grass you walk on, May blue be the skies above you, May pure be the joys that surround you, May true be the hearts that love you.

Paddy’s writings inspired her to start painting again. She knew how important it was to do the things that you enjoy in life instead of being drowned by the things you hate.

when you speak in cryptic riddles, sometimes you make absolutely no sense, but then there are those other times when I think you have acquired divine inspiration.” “Annie, only once we open our minds can we learn life's valuable lessons.

Mrs Anne Jellicoe (1823-80) believed that a woman’s real emancipation lay in her right to work and consequent financial independence.

Under despotic and corrupt governments, which oppress the people with taxes, to support extravagant misrule and unnecessary war--which debauch them by evil example of those in high places, and discourage education or render it impossible--the condition of the poor and nominally free becomes truly deplorable. But it is not Freedom which is their undoing--it is rather the lack of it. It is their subjection, through ignorance, to bad rulers, which keeps them in poverty. We know that the claim laid by capital to the lion's share of profits is itself, under any circumstances, a great obstruction to the progress of the masses; but we believe that even that obstacle will one day be removed--that problem in political science be solved by civilization and Christianity. We believe that the human intellect will never, with the light of the Gospel to guide and inspire its efforts, surrender to the cold and heartless reign of capital over labor. But, at any rate, one thing is certain, under the worst form of government, or the best, namely: when Freedom becomes a burden and a curse to the poor, Slavery--that is to say, the enslavement of the mass of laborers, with responsibility on the part of the master for their support--is no longer possible. When freemen are unable to support, themselves, among all the diversified employments of free societies, it would be impossible for them to find masters willing to take the responsibility. The masses in Europe, in fact, owe their liberty to the excessive supply of slave labor, which, when it becomes a burden to the land, was cast aside as worthless. Who believes that Irish landlords would take the responsibility of supporting the peasantry, on the condition of their becoming slaves? In fact, is it not notorious that they help them to emigrate to America, and often pull down their cabins and huts, in order to drive them off?

Oatmeal Breakfast Soup YIELD: 6 SERVINGS (ABOUT 8 CUPS) BREAKFAST was the inspiration for this soup, which has become a favorite at our house. Bacon, oatmeal, and milk are breakfast ingredients. And leeks? Well, I always put leeks in my soup. I microwave the bacon until crisp because Gloria always does so with good results, but it could be cooked in a skillet as well. Although I use coarsely granulated Irish oatmeal, which is chewy and flavorful, the soup is good made with quick-cooking oatmeal, provided you reduce the preparation time and the liquid accordingly. The first part of the recipe—bacon, leeks, and oatmeal—can be prepared ahead. It is better to add the milk and half-and-half at the last moment, however, for a fresher, cleaner-tasting soup. Finishing the soup with both milk and half-and-half is best, although using milk only is fine. 6 slices bacon (6 to 7 ounces), preferably maple- or honey-cured 2 small leeks, trimmed, with most of the green left on, sliced thin, and washed (2½ cups) 5 cups water 1 cup Irish coarse oatmeal 1½ teaspoons salt (less if bacon is highly salted) 1 cup half-and-half 1 cup milk ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Arrange the bacon on a microwave oven tray, cover with paper towels, and cook on full power for about 4 minutes, or until the slices are crisp and brown. Reserve about 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat, and transfer the bacon to a cutting board. Cut the bacon into ½-inch pieces, and set it aside. Put the reserved bacon fat in a saucepan. Add the sliced leeks, and cook over medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes, until softened. Add the water, and bring to a boil. Add the oatmeal and salt, stir, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to very low, cover (with the lid placed slightly ajar, so the oatmeal doesn’t boil over), and cook gently for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the oatmeal is tender. (The recipe can be made to this point up to 24 hours ahead of time.) At serving time, add the half-and-half, milk, and pepper, and bring to a boil. Serve hot with the bacon pieces sprinkled on top.

I was suddenly afraid she was going to climb the rail and leap into the sea. But maybe she wasn't. Maybe it was a delusion, my delusion. Maybe it was the fever coming on. Maybe what I really experienced on the steamer was the frightening, awe-inspiring sense we had been cut loose, were beyond the sight of land, lost. After all, what sort of woman, clutching the hand of her little boy, would actually consider climbing a ship's rail and leaping out into the Irish Sea? What sort of woman would consider stepping off a London bus into crowds, into oblivion? Only a woman penniless in wartime. Only a woman traveling into exile. Only a woman who suspects, from redness around his eyes and a croak in his voice, that her son has a life-threatening bout of scarlet fever coming on. Only a woman whose husband is a prisoner, whose father is a tyrant. Only a woman exhausted by life.

She said that too.” His voice was low key and modest. The accent, which was not very pronounced, had the gentle burr of the Scottish professional classes. This was an accent that would score highly in those tests of reliability that newspapers liked to carry out—those surveys that tended to reveal that a mild Scottish accent in a bank manager or financial adviser inspired more public trust than any other voice. By the same token, although the surveys were never so tactless as to point it out, people were reluctant to take investment recommendations from a person with a very strong Irish accent. There was no objective reason for this, of course, even if Ireland had created a property bubble of gargantuan proportions in the days of easily borrowed money. These views were tied in with old perceptions, and were slow to change, even in the face of hard evidence.

Lindisfarne Priory is the site of the earliest known Anglo-Saxon Christian monastery. Irish monks settled here in 635 AD following an invitation from Oswald, the Northumbrian king who has been the inspiration for characters such as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings,” Bowers’ voice rang out clearly as he brought history to life for a group of children from the local school on the island. “Northumbria was the largest kingdom in Britain at that time, so it was very powerful.

Each time we say yes to our fears and vulnerabilities, we move closer to our hopes and strengths.

We’ve been through this, Ma. Beer isn’t booze. Wine isn’t booze. If it ruins lives and inspires Irish poetry, country music, and soviet land wars, then it’s probably booze. Get me something with Kentucky written on the bottle.

She always violate your expectations... she's great poet " Irish Calif " ..

What the author put down on the page was just part of it. Characters, settings and plots from their creative minds were brought to life every time someone new read the words. Imaginary lives were created. Mythical worlds were explored. Fantastical creatures existed for new readers to experience.

Lewis frequently referred to Ireland as a source of literary inspiration, noting how its landscapes were a powerful stimulus to the imagination. Lewis disliked Irish politics and was prone to imagine a pastoral Ireland composed solely of soft hills, mists, loughs, and woods. Ulster, he once confided to his diary, “is very beautiful and if only I could deport the Ulstermen and fill their land with a populace of my own choosing, I should ask for no better place to live in.”[17] (In certain ways, Narnia can be seen as an imaginary and idealised Ulster, populated with creatures of Lewis’s imagination, rather than Ulstermen.)

In late 1953 Corridan would tell actor Karl Malden, who was visiting Chelsea in preparation for his role as the Corridan-inspired priest in the film On the Waterfront: “I was born in this neighborhood [the West Side]. When I was growing up there were two ways to go. Become a priest or a hood.

Apple defines itself as a company on a mission and so anything they do that fits that definition feels like it belongs. In 2004, they produced a promotional iPod in partnership with the iconoclastic Irish rock band U2. That makes sense. They would never have produced a promotional iPod with Celine Dion, even though she’s sold vastly more records than U2 and may have a bigger audience. U2 and Apple belong together because they share the same values and beliefs. They both push boundaries. It would not have made sense if Apple released a special iPod with Celine Dion. As big as her audience may be, the partnership just doesn’t align.

You really want to know?” Beatrice nodded. Catherine simply waited. If he wanted to tell them, he would. Clarence was not the sort of man you could persuade or plead with. “All right. It was the year I graduated from law school. Like the other black men in my class, I was inspired by Judge Ruffin, the first black man to graduate from Harvard Law and the first to become a judge in Massachusetts. I thought I was going to be just like him. Me, a poor boy raised by a widowed mother who used to clean other people’s houses to pay the rent. Well, I went through Howard on scholarship, then Harvard on scholarship, and my first year out I worked for an organization offering legal aid to other poor folk—black, Irish, Italian, all sorts. I was sent to one of the counties in the western part of the state, to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. That was the first time a judge called me ‘boy.’ I got my client off all right—the woman herself stood in the witness stand to say it wasn’t rape. They wanted to get married. That was legal in Massachusetts, and she was of age, but her father didn’t want her to marry a black man, so he told the sheriff that my client had raped her. She was visibly pregnant. “My client walked out of that courthouse a free man, but there was a crowd waiting for him outside, and suddenly her brother stepped out of that crowd. He was the sheriff’s deputy. He had a gun, and he said he was going to shoot that damn . . . his language isn’t fit to repeat. He was determined to kill my client. Without thinking, I jumped on him and wrestled with him for the gun. It went off. . . . He bled to death in my arms. So I was tried for manslaughter in that courthouse, in front of that judge. Despite his jury instructions, I was acquitted—you could almost see him frothing at the mouth with fury and tearing his hair out, the day I walked out of that courtroom, a free man. Everyone in that crowd had seen it was an accident, but who was going to give me a job after that? It didn’t matter that I was innocent. My face had been on the cover of the Boston Globe as the black man who’d killed a white policeman.

This book was inspired by the story of the people who set out on a walk for help on March 30, 1849, in Doolough, Ireland. It was a hard story to hear, and a hard story to tell, not least because to separate the story from the history, the people from what had happened to them, was a difficult process. For a long time, I struggled with the idea of giving a voice to those who’d been silenced, of making them into characters in a story of my telling. Their history, their ending, is theirs alone. I can only hope that those who didn’t survive Doolough, who didn’t get to tell their own story, would have been glad to have had it recounted as it is here, and that they would forgive me any mistellings, omissions, or misunderstandings. This book is for them, and for the Cayuse people of the Pacific Northwest, who today form part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeast Oregon. The Cayuse are, as they say, still here. The Irish and the Cayuse were banished to wander the world. May their souls, and the souls of their ancestors and their descendants, find peace in their ancestral homelands.

The need for labour, combined with the sheer poverty of Ireland, inspired that despairing urge for emigration in search of a better life which is universal to history. St Patrick’s Day began to be celebrated in Manchester. By 1821 there was said to be an Irish Catholic population in Liverpool of 12,000, which would rise to 60,000 in the next ten years.

All of it had paid off and now wastelands became mikvah and water she drank and grew light as it bubbled up by her and healed her and proclaimed her each word the truth and the joy and the treasure she always had been from the beginning.

When one uses the term education system as the name of the system of schools, colleges, universities, and what not which the English have established in Ireland, one uses it as a convenient label, just as one uses the term government as a convenient label for the system of administration by police which obtains in Ireland instead of a government. There is no education system in Ireland. The English have established the simulacrum of an education system, but its object is the precise contrary of the object of an education system. Education should foster; this education is meant to repress. Education should inspire; this education is meant to tame. Education should harden; this education is meant to enervate. The English are too wise a people to attempt to educate the Irish, in any worthy sense. As well expect them to arm us.

May God grant you always...A sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering Angel so nothing can harm you. Laughter to cheer you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, Heaven to hear you.  An Irish Blessing

Lord of my heart, give me vision to inspire me that, working or resting, I may always think of you. Lord of my heart, give me light to guide me that, at home or abroad I may always walk in your way. Lord of my heart, give me wisdom to direct me that, thinking or acting, I may always discern right from wrong. Heart of my own heart, whatever befall me, rule over my thoughts and feelings, my words and actions. ancient Irish

So what is knowledge if you don't have imagination is like an empty bottle with an air inside . what is the purpose of the air when it cannot see outside ?

Beaumont claimed that many events, places and characters mentioned in the Old Testament covertly allude to the British Isles. After detailed investigations of every island, headland, estuary, river, megalithic site, petroglyph, city and town in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, after similar investigations in Europe and Asia, and after a thorough analysis of Homer, Hesiod and other Greek mythographers and historians, Beaumont was convinced that pre- and post-diluvian men from the British Isles were the authors, broadcasters and inspirers of the many tales that appeared in adulterated form in the mythological archive and Bible’s convoluted accounts. According to the Welsh Triads, the

I will not crumble without a sword in hand.

I’m proud that I’m not someone who says ‘I can’t do that’. I’m someone who says ‘I won’t know until I try’.

I hope that more women learn to believe in themselves, because when we dig deep it’s amazing what lies inside.

I’m proud that I’m not someone who says, ‘I can’t do that.' I’m someone who says, ‘I won’t know until I try.

In his classic study Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from LeFanu to Blackwood, the American scholar Jack Sullivan divides traditional tales of the supernatural into two camps: the antiquarian and the visionary. The former is typified by a certain emotional detachment, coupled with subtle irony and a dry, precise evocation of a world that is recognizably our own, inhabited by sensible characters—male Edwardian antiquaries whose stolidity borders on dullness, and whose invocation of horrors is as inadvertent as it is irrevocable. The antiquarian ghost story is typified by the work of the English don M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James, himself inspired by the more open-ended horror of his Irish predecessor, Sheridan LeFanu. As Sullivan puts it, “For LeFanu’s characters, reality is inherently dark and deadly; for James’ antiquaries, darkness must be sought out through research and discovery.” The visionary ghost story, in contract, has more in common with the robust stream of American transcendentalism that emerged in the late 19th century, as well as with the hermetic and decadent artistic movements popular in fin de siècle Europe. Little surprise, then, that one of the most successful visionary writers, the British-born Algernon Blackwood, based his most rapturous and terrifying tales on his experiences in the Canadian wilderness, or that the other great supernatural visionary, the Welsh Arthur Machen, was a friend of Arthur Edward Waite, a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, and drew upon Celtic myth in his short fiction. Sullivan identified a later, third stream in supernatural writing in Lost Souls, the companion volume to Elegant Nightmares: he simply calls it the contemporary ghost story, a capacious portmanteau term that makes room for writers such as Robert Aickman, Walter de la Mare, Elizabeth Bowen and Ramsey Campbell. To this list I’d add Peter Straub, Kelly Link, Glen Hirshberg, and now, with the publication of Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, John Langan.