John Redmond Quotes

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.

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have arrived; and the union with England, which shall then have cursed Ireland for nine tenths of a century, will be repealed.

Stop at home. Arm for Ireland. Fight for Ireland and no other land.

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

Ireland is a place which must have so great an Army kept up in it, as may make the Irish desist from doing themselves or the English harm by their future Rebellions

…for the liberation of Ireland by force of arms

The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.

Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England - Ireland is not a geographical fragment, but a nation.

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.

There can be no perfect Europe in which Ireland is denied even the least of its national rights.

Altho that is so, Ireland has always denied and Ireland still denies that the Union was binding upon her either legally or morally. And here on this historic occasion we have assembled to renew our protest and to place it upon record.

The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.

We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic …. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavoring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe…. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be.

England cannot afford to go on with Irishmen in her Parliament.

No agency less potent than the red tide of war on Irish soil will ever enable the Irish race to recover its self respect …

… the annihilation of Ireland.

A country as enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with nothing less than liberty.

Is there to be no living Irish nation?

I never met anyone in Ireland who understood the Irish question, except one Englishman who had only been there a week.

In theory I suppose I am a separatist, In practice I would accept any settlement that would enable Irishmen to freely control their own affairs. If the truth were known, I think that this represents the political views of ninety-nine out of every hundred nationalists.

My object in all proceedings has simply been to assist in establishing the national independence of Ireland for the benefit of all the people of Ireland—noblemen, landlords, clergymen, judges, professional men—in fact all citizens, all Irishmen.

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...

Advance the cause of Ireland’s national independence by … the discontinuance of anything tending towards the Anglicization of Ireland … The development of an Irish foreign policy.

They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we'll see the rising of the moon.