Irish Revolution Quotes

There are certain functions that a writer has to do. In a time of crisis, it is great to have heroic poems, as it was in the Irish Revolution. It's great to have great songs, because people need something to sing when they are marching. That's OK, but it should be on the side. It's not the ultimate thing.

In 2016, let us all join the Rising, and the only final message is this very clear: Up the Rebels. Up a sovereign and independent Irish republic.

The Irish are people who will never have leaders, for at the great moment they always desert them. They have produced one skeleton--Parnell--never a man.

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.

The spirt of 1916 is as relevant and inspiring today as it was a century ago.

Getting involved with 'Black 47' was like getting involved with 'Dunkirk' for me. I learned a lot. But 'Black 47' was my own history from my own country.

We are the most conservative revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution.

We intend, Citizen General, to restore to a people ripe for revolution, the independence and liberty for which it clamors. Ireland has groaned under the hateful yoke of England for centuries. The Defenders … are already secretly armed…. Detach Ireland from England, and she will be reduced to a second-rate power.

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.

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.

…for the liberation of Ireland by force of arms

Governor Murphy, when you gave ardent support to the Irish revolutionary movement against the British Empire, you were not doing that because of your high regard for law and order. You did not then say "Uphold the law!" when your father, Governor Murphy, was imprisoned by the British authorities for his activities as an Irish revolutionary. You did not sing forth with hosannas and say, "The law cannot be wrong. The law must be supported. It is right and just that my father be put in prison. Praised be the law!" And when the British government took your grandfather as an Irish revolutionary and hanged him by the neck until he was dead, you did not get down on your knees and burst forth in praise for the sanctity and the glory and the purity of the law, the law that must be upheld at all costs! But here, Governor Murphy, you do. You want my answer, sir? I give it to you. Tomorrow morning I shall personally enter General Motors Plant Chevrolet Number 4. I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall then walk to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer rainments, remove my shirt and bare my bosom. Then when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first breast those bullets will strike! And as my body falls from the window to the ground, you listen to the voice of your grandfather as he whispers in your ear.

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.