Irish American Identity Quotes

I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and I think they force you to watch every James Cagney movie.

I am who I am: an Irish Catholic kid, working class from Long Island. And I made it big.

I was raised in an Irish-American home in Detroit where assimilation was the uppermost priority. The price of assimilation and respectability was amnesia. Although my great-grandparents were victims of the Great Hunger of the 1840's, even though I was named Thomas Emmet Hayden IV after the radical Irish nationalist exile Thomas Emmet, my inheritance was to be disinherited. My parents knew nothing of this past, or nothing worth passing on.

I'm one hundred percent Irish, and I'm very proud that I'm Irish American, though I don't know exactly where my ancestors came from. I just know County Cork.

But more than anything else, for the British folks Irish people were all terrorists. So when we went to Britain, it was always a lot of resistance to U2. And that's why we came to America.

I'm first and foremost an Irishman, by birth, by nature, by soul, but an American citizen through and through as well.

I'm Irish, I'm from New York, and I definitely have issues.

Being Irish was a big thing for me, particularly growing up in Chicago.

The fact is that most 'Irish-Americans', in spite of dropping the word 'Irish' into half of all sentences, couldn't find Europe on an atlas, let alone Ireland.

Why are Americans so fascinated by Ireland?" Keith asked... "you all think you're Irish. What's the appeal? Do you like the accent more? Is it all the magical rocks? Oh, look, a lep­rechaun.

I'm from outside of Boston, and in Boston, people are so passionate about their Irishness.

Three-quarters of my family is Irish. Of course, the 'Kazee' is not.

Being Irish-American myself, Irish-American material is readily at hand to me.

I know Irish-American people. I know what their homes look like. I know what they have for dinner. I know how they turn a phrase.

My father and his brothers and sisters were childhood Irish jig champions in the Bronx. At our family celebrations, they all get out and do the jig. And of course, the younger generation, me and my cousins and my brothers, we have our own Americanized renditions of the Irish jig, which is a bit more like 'Lord of the Dance.'

I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood.

I feel Irish-Americans are the forgotten minority group. Nobody else is making films about them.

Sometimes, there's not an honest engagement of Ireland in Hollywood movies.

As an Irish person, there's a historical fascination with America: America is the default green and promised land for Irish people and Italians; that's what we grow up with.

I'm a history buff, so I've been reading lots of books on Irish and American history.