Irish Historian Quotes

James Ussher

J. B. Bury

George Croly

According to our chronology, [the creation of the world] fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of October in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710 [4004 b.c.].

The ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together.

He [Charles Haughey] was a very promising minister in the '60s, but once he became leader all he was concerned with was staying leader. It was always about the cult of leadership. His sense of himself was much more important than any vision he had for the country. People say he discovered fiscal rectitude in '87, and people talk about his contribution to Anglo-Irish affairs, but really if you try and look for any consistency in his affairs after the late '70s you can't find it because it's just about him.

Diarmaid Ferriter

We need open minds and open hearts when we wrestle with the past and ask questions of it, and the answers it will provide are in nobody's pocket... We should let nobody tell us that they know all that it contains, or try to prescribe or constrain in advance what it has to tell us.

Oh! that fear
When the heart longs to know, what it is death to hear.

Goodness often blossoms like roses on very rickety trellis-work, and beauty can grow out of nonsense.