Irish Blessings
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.
Always remember to forget
The things that made you sad.
But never forget to remember
The things that made you glad.
Always remember to forget
The friends that proved untrue.
But never forget to remember
Those that have stuck by you.
Always remember to forget
The troubles that passed away.
But never forget to remember
The blessings that come each day.
May the saddest day of your future be no worse
Than the happiest day of your past.
May the roof above us never fall in.
And may the friends gathered below it never fall out.
May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.
May there be a generation of children
On the children of your children.
May you live to be a hundred years,
With one extra year to repent!
May the Lord keep you in His hand
And never close His fist too tight.
May your neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And Heaven accept you.
May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.
May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light,
May good luck pursue you each morning and night.
A Wedding Prayer
By the power that Christ brought from heaven,
mayst thou love me.
As the sun follows its course.
mayst thou follow me.
As light to the eye,
as bread to the hungry,
as joy to the heart,
may thy presence be with me,
'til death comes to part us asunder.
Irish Curses
May those who love us love us.
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping.
May the enemies of Ireland never meet a friend.
May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate
children chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that
the Lord himself can't find you with a telescope.
May you melt off the earth like snow off the ditch.
May his pipe never smoke, may his teapot be broke
And to add to the joke, may his kettle ne'er boil,
May he keep to the bed 'til the hour that he's dead,
May he always be fed on hogwash and boiled oil,
May he swell with the gout, may his grinders fall out,
May he roll howl and shout with the horrid toothache,
May the temples wear horns, and the toes many corns,
Of the monster that murdered Neill Flaherty's drake.
May his spade never dig, may his sow never pig,
May each hair on his wig be well thrashed with a flail,
May his door have no latch, may his house have no thatch,
May his turkey not hatch, may the rats eat his meat,
May every old fairy, from Cork an Dunleary,
Dip him snug and airy in river or lake,
Where the eel and the trout may feed on the snout
Of the monster that murdered Neill Flaherty's drake.
Irish Proverbs
A drink precedes a story.
A friend's eye is a good mirror.
A hen is heavy when carried far.
A hound's food is in its legs.
A lock is better than suspicion.
A silent mouth is melodious.
A trade not properly learned is an enemy.
Age is honorable and youth is noble.
As the big hound is, so will the pup be.
Be neither intimate nor distant with the clergy.
Both your friend and your enemy think you will never die.
Even a small thorn causes festering.
Good as drink is, it ends in thirst.
He who comes with a story to you brings two away from you.
He who gets a name for early rising can stay in bed until midday.
If you do not sow in the spring you will not reap in the autumn.
People live in each other's shelter.
Put silk on a goat, and it's still a goat.
Quiet people are well able to look after themselves.
Irish Quotations and Quotes about Ireland
St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.
Adrienne Cook
This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.
Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)
Ireland is rich in literature that understands a soul's yearnings, and dancing that understands a happy heart.
Margaret Jackson
The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent.
Hugh Leonard (John Keyes Byrne) (born 1926), an Irish dramatist.
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine in Food
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'! (an exerpt from "The Exile's Return")
John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher.
Maybe it's bred in the bone, but the sound of pipes is a little bit of heaven to some of us.
Nancy O'Keefe
In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs.
Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (1839-1919), an Irish classical scholar and
Rev.
I'm troubled, I'm dissatisfied. I'm Irish. (From "Spenser's Ireland")
Marianne Moore (1887-1972), an American poet.
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.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), an Irish poet.
There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.
John Millington Synge (1871-1909), an Irish dramatist.
It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.
Brendan Behan (1923-1964), an Irish dramatist and author.
In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God.
Stephen Braveheart
When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Ireland.
J. P. Dunleavy (born 1926)
When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.
Edna O'Brien (born 1932), an Irish novelist.
Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England . . . Ireland is not a geographical fragment, but a
nation.
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891), an Irish political leader.
Eternal is the fact that the human creature born in Ireland and brought up in its air is Irish. I have lived for twenty
years in Ireland and for seventy-two in England; but the twenty came first, and in Britain I am still a foreigner and shall
die one.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), an Irish playwright, critic
and essayist.
We . . . are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of
Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have
created the best of its political intelligence.
William B. Yeats (1865–1939)
speech in the Irish Senate, June 11, 1925.
