Northern Ireland Quotes

Religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews versus Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians versus Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians versus Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants versus Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims versus Hindus), Sudan (Muslims versus Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims versus Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims versus Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists versus Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims versus Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite versus Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians versus Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis versus Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. In these places religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in the last 10 years.

Peace, political stability and reconciliation are not too much to ask for. They are the minimum that a decent civilized society provides.

Anybody who resorts to violence will have no friends in the United States.

When I was growing up, Belfast City Hall was surrounded by security, and we had no access to it. But now, people come in and out of it all the time. On a nice day, office workers and students sit on the lawn outside and have lunch. It's great to see how Northern Ireland has changed. To be part of that is fantastic.

I am very proud I was part of the IRA in Derry and involved in repelling the designs of the British state forces against people who were being treated as second- and third-class citizens.

You will be put under the heel of a majority which, if greater than you in numbers, is most undoubtedly inferior to you in political knowledge and experience …. You the wealthy, the orderly, the industrious, the enterprising portion of Ireland are to supply money for the that part of Ireland which is less orderly, less industrious, less enterprising and less law-abiding …

On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.

Like crime, terrorism is a fact of life. I grew up in Israel, where every unattended bag was a suspected bomb; when my family moved for a few years, it was to London in the early years of 'the Troubles.'

I was filming a movie in London, and I drove through Ireland. It was quite beautiful, and the countryside was really remarkable. The contrast between the countryside and Ireland, and the murals there, with Northern Ireland still being a part of the United Kingdom, there's just a stark contrast in those two things. And I found that the art that came out of the conflict was really spectacular because it was about remembering either events or points of view for local neighborhoods, or the rallying cries of one side against the other.

Violence is the only language understood by Mr. Lloyd George and his ministers.

Bill Clinton was one of the greatest presidents that we've seen. He was involved in the peace process in the very beginning, and he not only showed himself to be knowledgeable about Irish history and Irish-British relationships, but also he was very sympathetic to the idea of resolving conflict.

Anyone born and bred in Northern Ireland can't be too optimistic.

As they say, one thing led to another, and, ultimately, the British and Irish governments asked me to serve as chairman of the peace negotiations, which ironically began six years ago this week.

Should an anthropologist or a sociologist be looking for a bizarre society to study, I would suggest he come to Ulster. It is one of Europe's oddest countries. Here, in the middle of the twentieth century, with modern technology transforming everybody's lives, you find a medieval mentality that is being dragged painfully into the eighteenth century by some forward-looking people.

I've made 'The Pilgrimage' - where I actually had to speak Gaelic - and I was shooting in Belfast as well.

We're nondenominational. I come from Northern Ireland, and we've had religious wars for years. I didn't want to create an illusion that my God is better than your God. So our show is a spiritual show, not a religious show.

But if I ever fight in Northern Ireland again, I want it to be at Windsor Park.

The need for peace in Northern Ireland goes well beyond political stability. It now speaks to regional Europe and even global stability.

You cannot make progress in a political vacuum.

You think that religion is a thing that is there to help you and to see you through life, and then you wake up one morning and find the entire Irish situation, the civil war that's based on religion.

I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20.

In Northern Ireland, helicopters are not usually used to promote poetry.

I am an Orngeman first and a politician and Member of Parliament afterwards…. In the South they boasted of a Catholic State…. All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State.

It's crazy enough to be the person crawling through the bushes in Northern Ireland with a telescopic lens taking pictures - there are crazy people out there. But the idea that people want to go to sites and find out those spoilers... it's like if there was a website called Last Pages of Great Books, would you read that?

The Conservative Party's always stood in every seat and I think it's important to us and I’m personally very pleased that we plan to continue to run candidates in Northern Ireland as well.