“Whether or not Freud was right when he muttered in exasperation that the Irish were the only people who could not be helped by psychoanalysis, there can be no doubt of one thing: the Irish will never change.”

— Thomas Cahill , book How the Irish Saved Civilization

Source: How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), Ch. VI What Was Found

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Thomas Cahill 58

American scholar and writer 1940

Declan Ganley (1968) Irish businessman, entrepreneur, and activist

Source: The Fight for Democracy – The Libertas Voice in Europe. (2009), p. 18

“When you’re young you never doubt yourself. You never wonder if you’re justified. But as a man gets older he learns to doubt. Whether he can do a thing—whether he should.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Source: Doomsday Morning (1957), Chapter 13 (p. 103)

“I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits. … The Jews have certain traits. The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish. … The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but …The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Conversation with Charles W. Colson, Feb. 13, 1973 http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/national/20101211_NIXON_AUDIO/2_TYPES.mp3, as quoted in "In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11nixon.html, by Adam Nagourney, New York Times (10 December 2010)
1970s

“Lord, you're Irish," said Will. "Can you make things that don't have potatoes in them? We had an Irish cook once when I was a boy. Potato pie, potato custard, potatoes with potato sauce…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“"I'm not sure if Irish people can dance…. except for The Edge, that is, who is our own funky chicken." (Bono on Edge's dancing)”

The Edge (1961) Irish rock musician, guitar player of U2

On dancing

“Psychoanalysis will be entirely discredited one of these days, no doubt about it. Which will not keep it from destroying our last vestiges of naivete. After psychoanalysis, we can never again be innocent.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

“The curious thing is that the more the mind takes in, the more it has space for, and that all one's ideas are like the Irish people at home who live in the different corners of a room and take boarders.”

Henry James Roderick Hudson

Source: Roderick Hudson (1875), Ch. V

“Higgins: Is [assassination] only justified if the target is a reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden?
Enda Kenny: I know you are a good Christian man who has your job to do in here from a political point of view. Many of his victims in the twin towers in New York were of Irish descent or directly Irish.”

Joe Higgins (1949) Irish socialist politician

Enda Kenny apologising to Higgins after slandering him. Irish Independent http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ok-you-are-not-a-bin-laden-fan-taoiseach-tells-joe-higgins-2637835.html

“I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling… I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt like it or not, I just did it.”

Stephen J. Cannell (1941–2010) American television producer, writer, novelist and occasional actor

“We will never abandon Ireland or the Irish people no matter what happens, because this solidarity is the very purpose of the European project.”

Emmanuel Macron (1977) 25th President of the French Republic

Brexit: EU stands fully behind Ireland, says Barnier https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47847700 BBC News (8 April 2019)
2017, 2019

“Whether or not Freud was right when he muttered in exasperation that the Irish were the only people who could not be helped by psychoanalysis, there can be no doubt of one thing: the Irish will never change.”

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Thomas Cahill 58

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