The British government needs to bring its system in Ireland under control.
We're on the verge of civil war in Northern Ireland. Why? Because if you take away the forums of democracy you don't have anything left.
I was born in the island of Ireland. I have Irish traits in me - we don't all have the traits of what came from Scotland, there is the celtic factor... and I am an Irishman because you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman.
I've also worked hard portraying an Ireland which is fast disappearing. Ireland was a very depressed and difficult place in the 1980s, and I've tried to include that in the script. I worked really hard to find the heart of the book.
I can't say enough about Ireland. I can't. I'd move there.
Sinn Fein is the fastest growing party on the island of Ireland.
It’s just very homey in Ireland. It’s very comforting and comfortable. There’s lots of fireplaces with fires. It’s just really cozy.
The fact is, I've always felt more British than Irish. Maybe it was the way I was brought up, I don't know, but I have always felt more of a connection with the U.K. than with Ireland.
Home will always be Northern Ireland but my schedule means for the next few years I won't be there as much. I can't do the same things that I did a year ago. That is I'm something conscious of, but I'm not sad about it. It's fine.
You can get on with your job. I'm going to get on with mine. And mine is to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland, that's what they expect from me and I'm not going to be deflected by interesting academic or media speculation or attempts to take the whole debate back.
I think the best comedy is tragicomic. Yeah, I suppose if you were to look at everything I've done, there is a bit of a black streak through all of it. It's not deliberate: it's what makes me laugh, and there's a fine tradition of it, especially in Ireland.
Ah, Ireland... That damnable, delightful country, where everything that is right is the opposite of what it ought to be.
Celtic music is part of the language in Scotland and Ireland, where every kid and grandparent knows those songs, music by the likes of Woody Guthrie and Hank Snow is getting entrenched here. They are part of our cultural language. It's part of a living treasure. It doesn't just belong to a museum.
When you have mental illness you don't have a plaster or a cast or a crutch, that let everyone know that you have the illness, so people expect the same of you as from anyone else and when you are different they give you a hard time and they think you're being difficult or they think you're being a pain in the ass and they're horrible to you. You spend your life in Ireland trying to hide that you have a mental illness.
Someone in Ireland asked me how many Republican poets there were in the U.S., and I thought maybe two. Maybe there are 10,000 poets, and maybe there are two Republicans among them.
Ireland is a place that's beautiful and interesting, but I remember when I went there as a teenager with my parents, I was like, "Okay, I'll go to Ireland with my parents. It's going to be green." I think people underestimate it, in that it's, "Oh, it's green," and then you get there, and it's like, "Wow, it is green!" It's, "Oh, there's Irish music," and then you get there, and you're like, "Oh, this Irish music is amazing!" You underestimate it.
Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?
I love our shared island, our shared Ireland and its core decency. I love it for its imagination and its celebration of the endless possibilities for our people.
When the Internet arrived in Ireland... it was like having Amsterdam's Red Light District in your own living room.
In my teens, I joined the Parachute Regiment. I jumped out of lots of airplanes, as much as the Government budget would allow us to. I did two active tours of duty: Northern Ireland, and then the Falklands war.
Idioms are a big thing in Ireland. They want to fill the time, to show how good they are at talk - it's a talk-off
I suppose in some ways, all over the world "crazy" is a term of abuse and I think that is something that should be stopped. In Ireland "crazy" is a term of abuse and people are terrified of anything that they conceive to be crazy. And the people believed to be crazy won't be treated compassionately, they will treat you horribly and use it as a reason to dismiss anything you would think, do, say or feel, so you're rocking into a self esteem trap.
It was a matter of not seeing the woods for the trees. Glorious songs have been in Ireland forever, but a lot of these were so popular they were sung only by drunken men at weddings. They didn't have any regard for the song at all. So, I picked out 14 songs that I had grown up with, songs with great melodies. After 35 years as a songwriter, I appreciate the value of a good melody because I know how hard it is to write one. So I presented them in a new way, with piano, keyboards, strings, and a contemporary rhythm section. I just treated the melody with a bit of dignity and a bit of style.
I love the traditional music of all our islands - Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales , but I suppose I'm viewed pretty much as an English songwriter and I'm going to try and do an English album, and I wouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed to do Scarborough Fair and Spencer the Rover and stuff like that.
The flight I'm most excited about is the one that takes me back to Northern Ireland to visit family and friends.
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