Irish Stereotype Quotes

Irish as a Paddy's pig.

When an English man speaks well, for example now, and this is another way of putting us down, they say he's "eloquent" you see. "Oh, eloquent chap they are!" An Irish person speak well, they say, "Ah, you have the gift of the gab." "Ah, you kissed the blarney stone." You see, all of this putting us down.

Yelling Irish, you can sound like an angry Leprechaun.

[On the Irish:] Strange race ... Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil.

If I'd wanted this place to fill up with every fat Irish rose that passes by, I'd've said so.

You know the way it is: sometimes Americans think of us as their backward little cousin. It's the whole shamrock, potatoes, famine, leprechaun thing, all that drunken paddies rubbish.

The Irishman in English literature may be said to have been born with an apology in his mouth.

I'm a typical Irishman in that I only get home for weddings and funerals.

But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that's why we came to America.

There's a real mischievousness about Irishmen, don't you find?

It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.

I have the soul of a singer and do splendidly in the shower but the world will never hear it. Basically, I'm the only Irish person who can't carry a tune.

They're a dark people with a gift for suffering way past their deserving. It's said that without whiskey to soak and soften the world, they'd kill themselves. (Irish)

I am Irish, so I do like a good fight every now and then.

You think the Welsh are friendly, but the Irish are fabulous.

There were two Irishmen eating sandwiches in a pub and the landlord said: "You can't eat your own food in here." So they swapped sandwiches.

Many people die of thirst but the Irish are born with one.

Show me an Irishman who can't tell a story - I don't think they exist.

There's a certain kind of guy, a certain kind of humor, that goes with Irish cops and firemen.

God created whiskey to keep the Irish from taking over the world.

Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Irish Celtic national revival. I never believed in 'Old Ireland.' It has been made all of kitsch by the diaspora, looking back and deciding what Ireland is. Yes, it is green. Yes, it is friendly. I can't think of anything else for definite.

Us Irish are kind of like that: we're hard grafters. We like to prove everybody wrong.

I'm just a loud Irish guy.

Violence and irrationality were so long and thoroughly cultivated among the Irish, and so perfectly ingrained into their nature, that modern civilization has as yet been unable to extract the virus.

Irishmen don't know what they want, and won't be satisfied until they get it.