History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake – 'James Joyce'
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Supplement given with the Weekly Freeman of October 1883
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It often seems to me as if History was like a child's box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We have only to pick out such letters as we want, arrange them as we like, and say nothing of those which do not suit our purpose. 'James Anthony Froude'
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It is because peace is so precious a boon that war is so sacred a duty. Ireland will not find Christ's peace until she has taken Christ's sword. What peace she has known in these latter days has been the devil's peace, peace with sin, peace with dishonour. It is a foul thing, dear only to men of foul breeds. Christ's peace is lovely in its coming, beautiful are its feet on the mountains. But it is heralded by terrific messengers; seraphim and cherubim blow trumpets of war before it. We must not flinch when we are passing through that uproar; we must not faint at the sight of blood. Winning through it, we (or those of us who survive) shall come unto great joy. We and our fathers have known the Pax Britannica. To our sons we must bequeath the Peace of the Gael. – 'Patrick Pearse'
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Patrick Pearse
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The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad. For all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad – 'G. K. Chesterton'
Blood is a cleansing and sanctifying thing, and the nation that regards it as the final horror has lost its manhood... there are many things more horrible than bloodshed, and slavery is one of them! – 'Patrick Pearse'
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If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed. Nationalism without Socialism – without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin - is only national recreancy. – 'James Connolly'
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James Connolly
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The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it. – Karl Marx
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We stand for an alliance with all countries without exception. – 'Vladimir Lenin'
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The greatest happiness of the greatest number – on the rock of this principle let this Society rest; by this let it judge and determine every political question, and whatever is necessary for this end let it not be accounted hazardous, but rather our interest, our duty, our glory and our common religion – 'Society of the United Irishmen'
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Gaelic League poster from 1913 contrasting a proud, independent Éire with a craven, dependent West Britain
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Education....has seemed to some like the bed of Procrustes; the bed on which all men that passed that way must lie, be it never so big for them, be it never so small for them: the traveller for whom it was too large had his limbs stretched until he fitted it, the traveller for whom it was too small had his limbs chopped off until he fitted into it - comfortably. It was a grim jest to play upon travellers....Our [education] system took and take, absolutely no cognisance of the differences between individuals, of the differences between localities, of the differences between urban and rural communities....every school must conform to a type - and what a type! Every individual must conform to a type - and what a type! The teacher has not been at liberty, and in practice is not yet at liberty, to seek and discover the individual bents of his pupils, the hidden talent that is in every normal soul, to discover which and to cherish which that it may in the fullness of time be put to some precious use, is the primary duty of a teacher. – 'Patrick Pearse'
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The desecrating voice of the establishment raged equally loud in denouncing Pearse in 1916 as it did in denouncing South in 1956. In Ireland the voice of the establishment has been and still is the voice of criminal and here crime massacres innocence to reign – 'Joe Christle'
