Irish Lineage Quotes

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.

My mother was very proud of being Irish and being a Gunnigan in a straightforward way.

My nan and granddad are from Cork.

My last name is originally Irish. I'm not exactly sure whereabouts it's from, but I've got family branches that were traced back there.

My family on my mother's side is Irish.

I am immensely proud of my Irish roots.

I'm from Salford, and I don't have any immediate Irish connection.

My parents are Irish, my grandparents are Irish, my great-grandparents are Irish. I was born in England; my blood is Irish.

I am, of course, directly descended from Brian Boru, the last king of Ireland, a fact certified by my mother and therefore beyond dispute. But as everybody else with a drop of Irish blood in his carcass is also a guaranteed descendant of the old billy goat, I am not overly arrogant because of this royal strain.

The phrase the violent bear it away fascinated the 20th century Irish-American storyteller Flannery O'Connor, who used it as the title of one of her novels. O'Connor's surname connects her to an Irish royal family descended from Conchobor (pronounced Connor), the prehistoric king of Ulster who was foster father to Cuchulainn and husband of the unwilling Derdriu. In the western world, the antiquity of Irish lineages is exceeded only by that of the Jews.