Colm Toibin Quotes

I lived in the Republic of Ireland. I wrote a book about the North but as an outsider. The hatreds there were not mine. I never felt them. I liked how open in most ways Catalan nationalism was, compared to Irish nationalism. I disliked the violence and cruelty in Ireland.

I felt that the IRA, in the context of Irish history, and Sinn Fein were a legitimate force that had to be recognized, and you wouldn't have peace without them.

I've always been fascinated with Ireland, especially Northern Ireland, having lived in London in the '80s when there was an Irish republican bombing campaign there.

The basic policy of the British Government was that since the majority of people in Northern Ireland wished to remain in the United Kingdom, that was that. We asked what would happen if the majority wanted something else, if the majority wanted to see Irish unity.

There's never going to be a united Ireland, you know.

You can have Irish identity in the north and also have your Irish passport.

The gun is not out of Irish politics.

Sinn Fein is the fastest growing party on the island of Ireland.

Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.

Every Irish person, good or bad, hates to see Ireland divided. But they differ profoundly as to how it should be united.

You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people in the north who said to me, 'When did you leave the IRA?'

In my view, a united Ireland is inevitable, and it is certainly more likely than a voluntary coalition which doesn't include Sinn Fein.

My feet always danced to Irish traditional music, but I was very glad to get out of the North of Ireland in the mid-Seventies when it was really closed and tight and relentlessly unforgiving.

A harrassed and dubious childhood under the hand of a well-meaning but barbarous mother's help from County Armagh led me to think of the North of Ireland as prison and the South as a land of escape.

Unfortunately, in the north and the south of Ireland, intolerant habits are part of the fabric of emotion, part of the identity crisis which afflicts the population of the country.

I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast.

Michigan is two radically different places - the North and the South which makes for good drama and contrast.

When you're from the East Coast or you're from the South, people expect you to sound a certain way. So if you don't sound that way, people won't label you as that type of artist. For me, I had a whole new lane to create for myself being from Pittsburgh and being a Midwest artist.

Well, it's like my movie, 'The Apostle.' Some people in the North don't get that movie. They think that, in the South, if you don't shout, you can't play one of those guys.

But the fact is that the vast majority of Republicans support the Sinn Fein leadership.

Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as it was yesterday when you and I laid wreaths at the Garden of Remembrance.

I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20.

In this context the British and Irish governments will have to promote a new, imaginative and dynamic alternative in which both governments will share power in the north.

I've never read anything set in Belfast that doesn't involve the Troubles or something senseless over a flag.

What drew me to Kazakhstan was a curiosity to learn about life in this 'middle earth' of steppe between the endless forests of Russia in the north and the world's greatest mountain chains to the south.