I printed a list of Irish names from the Internet and my husband, Dave, saw Finley on the list. I really liked it but didn't want to scare Dave off with my enthusiasm. So I used a little reverse psychology and let him think it was his idea.
My Irish derivation has nothing to do with me. Why should it?
My dad's Irish music was such a huge influence.
Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.
When Edna O'Brien's first novel, 'The Country Girls,' was published in 1960, her family and neighbors in the small Irish village where she was born tossed copies into a bonfire expressly set for that horrifying purpose.
I think women are in much the same place in the Irish theater as they are everywhere else. Certainly, we have wonderful Irish writers, and we have quite a number of Irish women directors. But there could be more, and there should be more.
'Ulysses' is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.
In my childhood there was every year at my old home, Roxborough, or, as it is called in Irish, Cregroostha, a great sheep-shearing that lasted many days. On the last evening there was always a dance for the shearers and their helpers, and two pipers used to sit on chairs placed on a corn-bin to make music for the dance.
If there is a vote in Britain to leave the E.U. there is a democratic imperative to provide Irish citizens with the right to vote in a border poll to end partition and retain a role in the E.U.
The fact is, I've always felt more British than Irish. Maybe it was the way I was brought up, I don't know, but I have always felt more of a connection with the U.K. than with Ireland.
I never thought about becoming a professional singer, but I am in touch with Bono about releasing a musical movie. It will be about an Irish band during the '70s who are looking for fortune in Las Vegas. I should play the singer of the band but I don't want to sing in front of anybody.
I come from an alcoholic Irish background - I know where I was going! But I met my wife and started to practise Buddhism, which is a levelling experience for me, and there hasn't been a day I've missed in 40 years. I apply it to everything - to my work and relationships. I try to be a compassionate person.
I'm proud of my Irish heritage and culture and this show will feature a lot of Irish dancing.
I have a thing for red-haired Irish boys, as we know.
Trash talk? Smack talk? This is an American term that makes me laugh. I simply speak the truth. I'm an Irish man.
The title, the name Frank, comes from this extraordinary British character Frank Friedbottom. He was very big in Britain in the '80s, but I, as an Irish kid, saw him on 'Top of the Charts.'
The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise they would not be given jobs minding mice at crossroads.
I've got many different voices - I have a Southern girl, an Irish girl. I have a gibberish language that you'd have to decipher. I guess I try to never take myself too seriously.
Our common membership of the E.U. provided an important external context to the Irish and U.K. governments working together for peace. It should not be discounted lightly.
I kind of have an interest in all history. And I suspect it comes from being Irish - we like stories, we like telling stories, which makes a lot of us lean towards being writers or actors or directors.
I would love to be able to speak my own language and maybe have an interview in Irish, maybe after my fights.
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
Finally, Colin Farrell showed up on my doorstep, only he wasn't Colin Farrell - he was just this Irish kid who had read the script and wanted to do it.
I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.
The best thanks we could offer those who went before and raised the Irish working class from their knees was to press forward with determination and enthusiasm towards the ultimate goal of their efforts, a Co-operative Commonwealth for Ireland.
I don't really go around feeling very Irish at all. I don't go to Irish pubs. I've lived so many places, and I'm still so curious about the bigger world. It's grand to be alive in a time when mobility is so accessible.
No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic.
We used to speak Irish - Gaelic Irish - around the dinner table, but over the years, we lost that.
My first mentor and inspiration was my Irish Dancing teacher Patricia Mulholland. She created her own form of dance known as Irish ballet and created stage productions of old Irish myths and legends. They were my first experiences on stage. She told my mum I was destined for the stage, and I took that as my cue.
It is a most disgraceful shame the way in which Irishmen are brought up. They are ashamed of their language, institutions, and of everything Irish.
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.
I come from an Irish Catholic family, and hell-raising is part of the DNA.
I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.
I worked the drive-through at McDonald's and tried out different accents - Italian, Russian, Irish.
Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe.
