Ireland Quotes

Here are over 300 Ireland quotes, toasts, blessings, proverbs, and assorted other quotations about Emerald Isle and the Irish people. For more history, see Irish History.

Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.
If you cheat, may you cheat death.
If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart.
If you fight, may you fight for a brother.
And if you drink, may you drink with me.

Here's to Destiny
May she not forget us in our time.

Here's to Eileen O'Hara
For her life held no terror
Born a virgin
Died a virgin
No runs, no hits, no errors

Here's to good Irish friends
Never above you
Never below you
Always beside you

Here's to health and prosperity,
To you and all your posterity.
And them that doesn't drink with sincerity,
That they may be damned for all eternity!

Here's to me, and here's to you,
And here's to love and laughter-
I'll be true as long as you,
And not one moment after.

Here's to our wives and girlfriends:
May they never meet!

Here's to temperance supper, with water in glasses tall, and coffee and tea to end with -- and me not there at all!

Here's to the four hinges of society.
May you fight, steal, lie and drink.
When you fight, may you fight for your country.
When you steal, may you steal away from bad company.
When you lie, may you lie at the side of your sweetheart.
And when you drink, may you drink with me.

Here's to the women that I've loved and all the ones I've kissed.
As for regrets, I just have one; that's all the ones I've missed.
Oh, womens' faults are many, us men have only two:
Every single thing we say, and everything we do.

Here's to those who wish us well,
as for the rest, they can go to Hell!

Here's to women of the Irish shore;
I love but one, I love not more.
But since she's not here to drink her part,
I'll drink her share with all my heart.

To warm words on a cold day.

What is but age? Something to count?
Some people fight it as if climbing the mount.
I choose life with dignity and grace
And offer a drink to all in this place!

Who is a friend but someone to toast,
Someone to gibe, someone to roast.
My friends are the best friends
Loyal, willing and able.
Now let's get to drinking!
Glasses off the table!

The quiet Irishman is about as harmless as a powder magazine built over a match factory.

This is our fate: eight hundred years' disaster, crazily tangled like the Book of Kells: the dream's distortion and the land's division, the midnight raiders and the prison cells.

O Ireland isn't it grand you look --
Like a bride in her rich adornin?
And with all the pent-up love of my heart
I bid you the top o' the mornin!

There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication.

Not in vain is Ireland pouring itself all over the earth. Divine Providence has a mission for her children to fulfill; though a mission unrecognized by political economists. There is ever a moral balance preserved in the universe, like the vibrations of the pendulum. The Irish, with their glowing hearts and reverent credulity, are needed in this cold age of intellect and skepticism.

Ireland is rich in literature that understands a soul's yearnings, and dancing that understands a happy heart.

I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish.

Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him.

Maybe it's bred in the bone, but the sound of pipes is a little bit of heaven to some of us.

Had you English not persecuted the Catholics in Ireland ... the greatest number of them would before now have become Protestants.

The Irish people do not gladly suffer common sense.

If one could only teach the English how to talk and the Irish how to listen, society would be quite civilized.

We are all of us in the gutter.
But some of us are looking at the stars.

Work is the curse of the drinking class.

We Irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the Greeks.

It is better to spend money like there's no tomorrow, than to spend tonight like there's no money.

The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are FAIR PEOPLE; they never speak well of one another.

This [the Irish] is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.

In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.

The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song -- it's that they know them all.

On she went, and her maiden smile
In safety lighted her round the Green Isle;
And blest forever was she who relied
Upon Erin's honor and Erin's pride.

A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote.
A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat.
So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote.

The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk they're sober.

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all that we will know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you and I sigh.

To Age! To Age! Why does one care?
As the wrinkles grow longer and gray graces your hair.
Life should be simple because when push comes to shove,
The only one counting is the good Lord above!

When the roaring flames of your love
have burned down to embers,
may you find that you've married your best friend.

St. Patrick was a gentleman
Who through strategy and stealth
Drove all the snakes from Ireland.
Here's toasting to his health.
But not too many toastings
Lest you lose yourself and then
Forget the good St. Patrick
And see all those snakes again.

An old Irish recipe for longevity: Leave the table hungry. Leave the bed sleepy. Leave the table thirsty.

God invented whiskey so the Irish wouldn't rule the world.

God made the Italians for their beauty. The French for fine food. The Swedes for intelligence. The Jews for religion. And on and on until he looked at what he had created and said, "This is all very fine but no one is having fun. I guess I'll have to make me an Irishman."

Happiness being a dessert so sweet
May life give you more than you can ever eat.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,
I could walk through my garden forever.

If you're enough lucky to be Irish … You're lucky enough!

In life, there are only two things to worry about, either you are well, or you are sick. If you are well, there is nothing to worry about, but if you are sick, you have two things to worry about; either you will live, or you will die. If you live, there is nothing to worry about, if you die, you have two things to worry about; either you will go to heaven or to hell. If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about, but if you go to hell, you'll be so busy shaking hands with your friends, you won't have time to worry!

In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God.

Ireland, it's the one place on earth
That heaven has kissed
With melody, mirth,
And meadow and mist.

Ireland, sir, for good or evil,
No other place under Heaven.
And no man can touch its sod
Or breathe its air without becoming
Better or worse.

It's easy to be pleasant when life flows by like a song.
But the man worth while is the one who can smile
When everything goes dead wrong.

For the test of the heart is trouble
And it always comes with years.
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through the tears.

I've drank to your health in taverns,
I've drank to your health in my home,
I've drank to your health so damn many times,
I believe I've ruined my own!

May all your joys be pure joys,
and all your pain champagne.

Murphy's Law:
Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Everything takes longer than you expect.
And if anything can go wrong,
It will at the worst possible moment.

Now sweetly lies old Ireland
Emerald green beyond the foam,
Awakening sweet memories,
Calling the heart back home.

On the chest of a barmaid in Sale
Were tattooed the prices of ale.
And on her behind,
For the sake of the blind,
Was the same information in Braille!

Rye bread will do you good,
Barely bread will do you no harm,
Wheaten bread will sweeten your blood,
Oaten bread will strengthen your arm.

The race of men named the Gael,
Is a race God surely made mad.
For all of their wars are merry
And all of their loves are sad.

The reason the Irish are always fighting each other
Is they have no other worthy opponents.

The test of Gold is Fire
The test of Truth is Time
The test of God's love are the heavens above
and everything sublime
Treasures in life are many,
dreams realized but few
But I know the test of God's goodness
is when he gave me a friend like you.

There are good ships, and there are wood ships,
The ships that sail the sea.
But the best ships, are friendships,
And may they always be.

There are only two kinds of people in the world, The Irish
And those who wish they were.

There's the joy of ole' Killarney, in these wishes meant for you;
There's a bit of Irish blarney, and a touch of magic too --
There's a wish of lots of laughter, and good luck, be sure o' that;
And a wish that all your dreams may come true in no time flat.

'Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he's dead.

To a full moon on a dark night, and the road downhill all the way to your door.

We cannot share this sorrow
If we haven't grieved a while.
Nor can we feel another's joy
Until we've learned to smile.

What is Irish diplomacy?
It's the ability to tell a man to go to hell,
So that he will look forward to making the trip.

Wherever you go and whatever you do,
May the luck of the Irish be there with you.

You're not too old when your hair turns gray.
You're not to old when your teeth decay.
But you'll know you're awaiting that final sleep,
When your mind makes promises your body can't keep.

More on Ireland & the Irish

Irish history

Irish postcards

Irish books

Irish posters