Ireland is an inspirational place, known for churning out some of the world’s best writers. Thanks to its historic castles, myths, legends, and stunning national parks, Ireland is rich with poetry and spirit. If you’re thinking about doing an internship in Ireland, it’s important to get a sense of what makes this beautiful country tick. Check out these 17 quotes that perfectly capture the Irish spirit.
1.“To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.” -Daniel Patrick Moynihan
2. “Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” –Oscar Wilde
3. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” -Samuel Beckett
4. “Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. A country without a language is a country without a soul.” -Pádraic Pearse
5. “Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.” -Frank Harte
6. “World is suddener than we fancy it.” -Louis MacNeice
7. “Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.”
-Thomas Moore
8. “Ireland, it’s the one place on earth that heaven has kissed with melody, mirth, and meadow and mist.”
-Irish Blessing
9. “Limerick gained a reputation for piety, but we knew it was only the rain.” -Frank McCourt
10. “More guilt, guilt, guilt. That’s the Irish condition.” -Adrian McKinty
11. “These are the ashes of fiery weather,
Of nights full of the green stars from Ireland,
Wet out of the sea, and luminously wet,
Like beautiful and abandoned refugees.”
-Wallace Stevens
12. “Do not hope to understand the source of my understanding.” -Thomas Fitzgerald
13. “I try to clutch onto those last moments in the place that I was born to, but I was so busy *living* them! How was I to know I’d have to capture everything I ever wanted to remember of Eire for the rest of my life?” -Kate McCafferty
14. “But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.” –James Joyce
15. “Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” –Oscar Wilde
16. “Later as the day cools and they have gone in, the cry of the corncrake will carry across those same fields and over the lake to the blue-hazed mountain, such a lonely evening sound to it, like the lonely evening sound of the mothers, saying it is not our fault that we weep so, it is nature’s fault that makes us first full, then empty.” –Edna O’Brien
17. “I have always been a lover of the sun, even if, through spending a lifetime in Ireland, I have had little personal connection with it.” -John Boyne
Apply now to boost your career with an internship in Ireland!
Sources: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/ireland?page=3, https://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/beautiful-quotes-from-irish-writers?utm_term=.vsr54MGpv#.pjbgB4pr2
Photos
1. based on Above the Cliffs, by Desmond Kavanagh, CC-by-ND 2.0
2. based on Old Bike in Ireland, by Conal Gallagher, CC-by-2.0
3. based on Glendalough, Wicklow, Ireland – Landscape photography, by Giuseppe Milo, CC-by-2.0