Gaelic QUOTES

1 " There had been a time, until 1422, when a number of both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish students attended Oxford and Cambridge in England. But fellow students had complained that Irish living together in large numbers sooner or later got noisy and violent and there was no handling them. Accordingly, the universities imposed a quota system on Irishman, and decreed that those admitted must be scattered around among non-compatriots: exclusively Irish halls of residence were banned. "

― Emily Hahn , Fractured Emerald: Ireland

2 " What is it that Australians celebrate on 26 January? Significantly, many of them are not quite sure what event they are commemorating. Their state of mind fascinated Egon Kisch, an inquisitive Czech who was in Sydney at the end of January 1935. Kisch has a place in our history as the victim, or hero, of a ludicrous chapter in the history of our immigration laws. He had been invited to Melbourne for a Congress against War and Fascism, and was forbidden to land by order of the attorney-general, R. G. Menzies. He had jumped overboard, broken his leg, gone to hospital, failed a dictation test in Gaelic and been sentenced to imprisonment and deportation. When the High Court declared Gaelic not a language, Kisch was free to hobble on our soil... "

― , Observing Australia: 1959–1999

3 " The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense of narrative drive that is essential to the modern novel, screenplay and even non-fiction. "

― Sara Sheridan

4 " I needed this cold shower for more than one reason; the sexy male from my dream this morning returned during my little siesta. His sultry baritone was still fresh in my mind as I waited for the water to heat up. My Gaelic may have been a bit rusty, but from what I could understand, he had planned quite the erotic encounter under a sacred willow tree. I wasn’t sure I understood the reason for the tree, but he was quite adamant about it. Hey – tree or no tree, when he spoke and kissed my neck, I would have found a way to steal the Eiffel Tower if he had asked. "

― Brynn Myers , Entasy (Prophecies of The Nine, #1)

5 " Huxley: " Tell me something Bryce, do you know the difference between a Jersey, a Guernsey, a Holstein, and an Ayershire?" Bryce: " No." Huxley: " Seabags Brown does." Bryce: " I don't see what that has to do..." Huxley: " What do you know about Gaelic history?" Bryce: " Not much." Huxley: " Then why don't you sit down one day with Gunner McQuade. He is an expert. Speaks the language, too." Bryce: " I don't..." Huxley: " What do you know about astronomy?" Bryce: " A little." Huxley: " Discuss it with Wellman, he held a fellowship." Bryce: " This is most puzzling." Huxley: " What about Homer, ever read Homer?" Bryce: " Of course I've read Homer." Huxley: " In the original Greek?" Bryce: " No" Huxley: " Then chat with Pfc. Hodgkiss. Loves to read the ancient Greek." Bryce: " Would you kindly get to the point?" Huxley: " The point is this, Bryce. What makes you think you are so goddam superior? Who gave you the bright idea that you had a corner on the world's knowledge? There are privates in this battalion who can piss more brains down a slit trench then you'll ever have. You're the most pretentious, egotistical individual I've ever encountered. Your superiority complex reeks. I've seen the way you treat men, like a big strutting peacock. Why, you've had them do everything but wipe your ass. "

6 " Conchar is an ancient Gaelic term for those who admire the king of all hunters: the wolf.To some, the wolf is a magnificent beast, the pinnacle of predatory evolution. To others, the wolf is a thing of nightmare. "

7 " The position is: the Gaelic language is no longer the native language; it is dead, yet food is being brought to the graveyard. "

8 " I think the poetry that came out of Belfast, and especially the Queen's University set, in the 1970s and '80s - you know, Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Ciaran Carson - that was probably the finest body of work since the Gaelic renaissance, up there with the work of Yeats and Synge and Lady Gregory. "