"The women of Ireland are very complex creatures, tall, slender and upright. Of complexion very fayre (but freckled)with tresses of bright yellow hayre, which they chain up in curious knots and devises." ~Justice Luke Gernon."
"The horse is the abiding passion of Ireland. There is not a trueborn Irishman, or woman, who does not turn to follow the sight of a nervous steeplechaser, high-stepping, his flanks shining with health, his hoofs ringing on the cobbles, the sweetest music to their ears." ~H.V. Morton
"Milis an teanga an Ghaeilge." ~Seatrun Ceitinn
"...the words are the image of the minde, so as they proceeding from the minde must needs be affected with the words. So that the speech being Irish, the heart must needs be Irish: for out of the abundance of the heart the tongue speaketh." ~edmund Spenser
"The ancient traditions of the Celtic peoples, which on the Continent have been almost completely obliterated by successive invaders have, in Ireland, survived and been handed down as the particular inheritance of the nation." ~R.I.Best
"If we turn to Ireland...we find a country where for some 1,500 years, as far back as historic knowledge can reach, one national force has overshadowed and dominated all others. It has been the power of a great literary tradition."~Alice Stopford Green
"Ireland was one of the earliest countries to evolve a system of hereditary surnames: they came into being fairly gradually in the eleventh century, and indeed a few were formed before the year 1000... At first the surname was formed by prefixing Mac to the father's Christian name or O to that of a grandfather or earlier ancestor."~Edward MacLysacht
"I have met many men and women who swear they have heard the banshee, many of them educated people, but I have encountered only one man who claimed to have seen it. He says it was combing its hair beside a stream and stopping now and then to dip its hands in the water." ~H.V. Morton
"But there was one sad one among the glad fairies - the banshee - the little white woman who, in the middle of the night, on the eve of a family death, seated herself on the limb of a tree close by the home, and there, combing her long black locks, raised three heart-rending wails that sent a deadly shiver to the hearts of all within hearing, and apprised them that death was coming to claim another toll." ~Seumas MacManus
"The banshee only follows families whose names being with an 'O' or a 'Mac.'" ~Irish folk saying
"An English Army led by an Irish General: that might be a match for a French army led by an Italian." ~Bernard Shaw
