John McDonnell Quotes

The Irish Free State was one of dozens of new European democracies to emerge from the cauldron of the 1914-1918 war. It was one of the very few that was still democratic in 1939. This book shows how the steely determination of one man, Kevin O'Higgins, made this possible. O'Higgins faced down mutinies in both the Gardai and the Army. He dissolved the Dáil Courts which were a parallel system that might easily have undermined the conventional courts. With WT Cosgrave, he put through a constitution which reconciled the local opponents of independence with the new State.

It was a little bit strange as an English woman cast in 'Rebellion.' I read up about the events and, honestly, I knew very little about it to begin with it. It wasn't something that they cover in English schools at all.

The 1916 uprising was kind of the most important rebellion in Ireland's fight for independence that had been going on for 700 years. So it's a very important moment in history for us.

I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me.

In 1889, I predict, the legislative stage of the Irish question will have arrived; and the union with England, which shall then have cursed Ireland for nine tenths of a century, will be repealed.

For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms.

Repeal and Repeal alone is and must be the grand basis for all future operations, hit or miss, win or lose. The people will take nothing short of that …. I say there can be no other basis for association [of Ireland with Britain] save the Repeal, the glorious Repeal

World War One is an important part of Ireland's multi-layered history during which tens of thousands Irish people lost their lives.

We made 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' about the war of independence and the civil war, which were the pivotal moments of Irish history, really. 'Jimmy's Hall' would seem to be a smaller story 10 years later.

Patrick Pearse - who set the events of 1916 in motion when he read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from the steps of the General Post Office in Dublin - is not exactly an unfamiliar name to the Miramichi Irish.

The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.

No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic.

Well, we know that eighteen years after that solemn declaration it was disregarded, and the Irish Parliament, which lasted for five hundred years, was destroyed by the Act of Union. Gentlemen, the Act of Union was carried by force and fraud, by treachery and falsehood.

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 am very proud of this work because it is more about the meaning of the Easter Rising and its relationship to what this whole century has been about, people liberating themselves, freeing themselves.

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.

What have I got for Ireland? Something which she has wanted these past 700 years. Will anyone be satisfied with the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this -— early this morning I signed my death warrant.

…for the liberation of Ireland by force of arms

I want to make all Europe and America know it – I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require – the restoration of our domestic parliament...

WE WANT NO REDS HERE! Keep Their Color Off Your Flag Vote for Cumann na nGedheal

My mother's father was from Sligo, and he used to say it was the hardest thing in the world to find a man alive in Dublin who wasn't in the GPO during the Easter Rising. Twenty brave men marched into that post office, he said, and thirty thousand marched out.

Give Ireland back to the Irish, don't make them have to take it away.

I grew up wearing black arm-bands when the hunger strikers died. I went on those marches. I grew up basically a Provo, though I never obviously got into any activities. I was writing 'IRA, Brits out' on walls all over where I grew up, but that was a false sense of Irishness.

Generations will continue to meet the same fate unless the perennial oppressor-Britain-is removed, for she will unashamedly and mercilessly continue to maintain her occupation and economic exploitation of Ireland to judgment day, if she is not halted and ejected.

The British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland.