“My poor opinion is, that the closest connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, is essential to the well being, I had almost said, to the very being, of the two Kingdoms. … I think indeed that Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland; but, as there are degrees even in ruin, it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By such a separation Ireland would be the most completely undone Country in the world; the most wretched, the most distracted and, in the end, the most desolate part of the habitable Globe.”

— Edmund Burke

Letter to an unknown correspondent (February 1797), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume IX: May 1796–July 1797 (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 257
1790s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "My poor opinion is, that the closest connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, is essential to the well being, I had…" by Edmund Burke?

Edmund Burke photo

Edmund Burke 270

Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797

Related quotes

“Northern Ireland is part of Ireland, not Britain, as can clearly be seen from aerial photographs.”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

Quoted without source in [Jeremy Hardy: Caustic comic, In Depth: Newsmakers, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/1913049.stm, 2008-05-16, Bob Chaundy, April 5, 2002]
Attributed

“From my tenderest youth I have considered the union of Ireland with Great-Britain as the scourge of the Irish nation. And that the people of this country can have neither happiness nor freedom whilst that connection endures. Every day's experience, and every fact that arose, convinced me of this truth; and I resolved, if I could, to separate the two countries. But as I knew Ireland could not of herself, throw off the yoke, I sought for help wherever I could find it.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Speech to the Court-Martial, assembled to pass sentence on his life (November 10, 1798) http://rewinn.com/8043.html

“I am against this Treaty not because I am a man of war but because I am a man of peace. I am against this Treaty because it will not end the centuries of conflict between the two nations of Great Britain and Ireland.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

(18 December 1921).
I'm Glad You Asked Me That (2007)

“Northern Ireland has always been, part of Britain.”

Sammy Wilson (1953) British politician

As quoted in Da Ali G Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc34JKvCQ3Q

“The peculiarity of this strike…has been that a great number of separate trades, which have nothing to do with one another…have shown that they intend to make common cause. You may depend upon it that this is a social fact of the highest importance and of very general importance of the future. I believe that the lesson has been learnt from Ireland, and that it is due to the present Government and to its coercive laws in Ireland, and to the necessity which they have laid upon the people of Ireland in different parts of the country which have no connexion with one another to associate together for an object which they believe to be vital to all. I am much inclined to think that the working men of London have learnt this lesson from Ireland.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Speech in Cheshire (23 September 1889) on the London dock strike, quoted in The Times (24 September 1889), p. 10.

“By doing so, we shall, in course of time,
Regenerate completely our entire land—
Great Britain is that monarchy sublime,
To which some add (but others do not) Ireland.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Final chorus, concluding lines.
Utopia Limited (1893)

“For a century and a half—from the middle of the fifth century to the end of the sixth—there had been… no formal communication between Rome and the Christians of Britain, nor had there been any between Rome and Ireland…”

Thomas Cahill book How the Irish Saved Civilization

Source: How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), Ch. VII The End of the World

“Oh, Tolkien, that miserable Catholic. He even hated refrigerators. A technophobic academic who probable would have fucked Ireland, if Ireland were fuckable.”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

via Boing Boing http://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/the-story-of-traceroute-about.html

“I suppose many people in Ireland would regard me as being more a European writer than an Irish writer. I don't think this is so.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: claiming Kafka as an Irish writer (2011)

“I want no array of figures, I want no official documents, I want no speeches of six hours, to establish to my satisfaction the public policy of maintaining the Legislative Union [with Ireland]. I feel and know that the Repeal of it must lead to the dismemberment of this great empire; must make Great Britain a fourth-rate power of Europe, and Ireland a savage wilderness; and I will give therefore, at once, and without hesitation, an emphatic negative to the motion for Repeal.”

Robert Peel (1788–1850) British Conservative statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1834/apr/25/repeal-of-the-union-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (25 April 1834).

Related topics