Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa Quotes

Holy War for the Preservation of the Faith in Ireland

For generations the shamrock was banned as a national emblem of Ireland, but in her extremity England uses the shamrock as a means for exciting in foolish Irishmen loyalty to England. For centuries the green flag of Ireland was a thing accurst and hated by the English garrison in Ireland, as it is still in their inmost hearts. But in India, in Egypt, in Flanders, in Gallipoli, the green flag is used by our rulers to encourage Irish soldiers of England to give up their lives for the power that denies their country the right of nationhood.

I do affirm I was never, nor am, a popish Recusant—or popishly affected

Act to Prevent the Further Growth of Popery

I hate causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

We will prove to our countrymen that the ties formed by grace and faith are stronger than flesh and blood. God and our country – this [is] our watchword. Loyalty to God’s church and to our country – this [is] our religious and political faith.

He too, liked his party, and was fond of loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but …loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave without danger to himself.

The great object of my life has been the independence of my country; for that I have sacrificed everything that is most dear to man…. The connection with England has been her bane.

God save Ireland, said the heroes God save Ireland said they all. Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battle field we die O’ what matter when for Ireland dear we fall.

The only people I've ever heard saying that disagreeing with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld is un-American or treasonous are people who disagree with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

La Follette is the Grand American neo-Copperhead ... at the moment loyally serving one country—Germany.

We are a fighting race, we are told, and every Irishman is always proud to hear our politicians and journalists tell of our exploits in the fighting line – in other countries, in other climes and in other times. Yes, we are a fighting race. Whether it is under the Stars and Stripes or under the Union Jack; planting the flag of America over the walls of Santiago or helping our own oppressors to extend their hated rule over other unfortunate nations our brave Irish boys are ever to the front. When the Boer has to be robbed of his freedom, the Egyptian has to be hurled back under the heel of his taskmaster, the Zulu to be dynamited in his caves, the Matabele slaughtered beside the ruins of his smoking village or Afridi to be hunted from his desolated homestead, wheresoever, in short, the bloody standard of the oppressors of Ireland is to be found over some unusually atrocious piece of scoundrelism, look then for the sons of our Emerald Isle, and under the red coats of the hired assassin army you will find them. Yes, we are a fighting race. In Africa, India or America, wherever blood is to be spilt, there you will find Irishmen, eager and anxious for a fight, under any flag, in anybody's quarrel, in any cause – except their own

The people's flag is deepest red; It shrouded oft our martyred dead .... Then raise the scarlet standard high. Within its shade we'll live or die. Tho' cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the red flag flying here.

The Irish hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our pure religion. This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain, and superstitious race have no sympathy with the English character …. Their history describes an unbroken circle of bigotry and blood.

If you would be a loyal American, then become a loyal Christian.

I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.

We must differentiate between loyalty to one’s country and blind loyalty to the policy that a particular administration happens to be carrying out.

My country? My country is the United States.

There is but one task for all— For each one life to give. Who stands if freedom fall? Who dies if England live?

Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.

The feeling of patriotism --- It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God ... or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience

Ireland was almost constantly agitated by rebellions and insurrections, which, although not always taking their rise from the difference of religious opinions, between the English and Irish, were aggravated and rendered more bitter and irreconcilable from that cause.

Neither experience nor improvement can root out the inveterate prejudices of the Roman Catholics, or render them less cruel or inexorable to Protestants.

As for the much discussed Irish university, I do not myself believe it will be founded. Should even an English Government be blind enough to allow it, an Irish university could only become a hot-bed of treason, and practically all educated members of the Roman Catholic community would avoid sending their sons to such a seminary of sedition, where the influence would be insidiously directed to make the undergraduates even more hostile to England than they already are by inherited instincts and by all they have been told in their own homes.

Numbers of starving Catholics had gone to Protestant clergymen and offered to become converts in return for food, and when some of these sickened with the fever, the priests declared it was a judgment on them, and religious hostility became intensified.