Gaelic Quotes

Tears and laughter, they are so much Gaelic to me. (Samuel Beckett)
Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity. View quote
John McGahern
I have always loved Scottish music - all sorts of Celtic, Gaelic music. View quote
Carter Burwell
As we look to secure our ambitions for this nation's future, we must recognise that a vibrant Gaelic language and culture are central to what it means to be Scottish in the modern world. View quote
Alex Salmond
There has always been - and always will be - interdependence between the economic prospects of Scotland's Gaelic speaking population and the strength of our Gaelic culture. The language will thrive only once there are real economic opportunities for Gaelic speakers. View quote
Alex Salmond
Gaelic language and culture is inseparable from the future success of the Scottish economy. View quote
Alex Salmond
I want to see Gaelic thrive across the whole of Scotland. View quote
Alex Salmond
I will not give you an elegy - words to stir your hearts as our beloved Gaelic slowly fades away. And I will not be prescribing palliative care. View quote
Alex Salmond
Our Gaelic language and culture has prevailed. View quote
Alex Salmond
Gaelic is not a regional language - it is a truly nationwide language. And the future success of Gaelic depends on attracting new speakers to the language here as much as its does on fostering Gaelic in its traditional heartland. View quote
Alex Salmond
We cannot take Gaelic's future for granted, particularly when the number of speakers continues to diminish. As the stewards of Gaelic in Scotland, we are responsible for ensuring that the language is able to flourish. (Alex Salmond)
"Sassenach." He had called me that from the first; the Gaelic word for outlander, a stranger. An Englishman. First in jest, then in affection. View quote
Diana Gabaldon
There is an oath upon her," he said to Arch, and I realized dimly that he was still speaking in Gaelic, though I understood him clearly. "She may not kill, save it is for mercy or her life. It is myself who kills for her. View quote
Diana Gabaldon
My first language is Gaelic. View quote
Enya
Singing in Gaelic is very, very natural to do. I think lends itself very much so to being sung. View quote
Enya
Dubh is do?" I was incredulous. It was no wonder I hadn't been able to find the stupid word. "Should I be calling pubs poos?" "Dubh is Gaelic, Ms. Lane. Pub is not. View quote
Karen Marie Moning
When I was a kid, if you didn't speak Irish, you really wanted to. And you played Gaelic games and you didn't pay any attention to what was happening in the outside world, because really, the - Ireland was the center of the universe. And I don't think that's the case anymore, although, admittedly, it is the center of the universe. View quote
Roddy Doyle
I can speak French, understand Gaelic and know my history. That's the training music has given me. View quote
Eddi Reader
My kids are Irish; I want them to grow up playing Gaelic football and learning Irish. View quote
Shane Filan
My obsession was the preservation of the Gaelic language so that there would be people left in the world who could hear its great songs as they really were. No poetry could be translated, still less could song poetry, and the great language of Gaelic song made me fanatical about the beauty of the Gaelic language and its astonishing ability to indicate shades and positions of emphasis with natural inversions and the use of particles. View quote
Sorley MacLean
[T]he Celtic Twilightists achieved the remarkable feat of attributing to Gaelic poetry the very opposite of every quality which it actually has. (Sorley MacLean)
The whole prospect of Gaelic appals me, the more I think of the difficulties and the likelihood of its extinction in a generation or two. A ... language with ... no modern prose of any account, no philosophical or technical vocabulary to speak of, no correct usage except among old people and a few university students, colloquially full of gross English idiom lately taken over, exact shades of meanings of most words not to be found in any of its dictionaries and dialectally varying enormously (what chance of the appreciation of the overtones of poetry, except amongst a handful?) Above all, all economic, social and political factors working against it, and, with that, the notorious, moral cowardice of the Highlanders themselves. View quote
Sorley MacLean
My father could swear in Gaelic and English, by the way, ladies and gentlemen. View quote
Denis Leary
It wasn't so long ago that it was not popular to speak Gaelic in Ireland because the areas that Gaelic is spoken in were much poorer areas. View quote
Enya
I happen to belong to a little nationality. So do you, and we are a real nationality. I have been listening to Welsh music... I have been listening to a Welsh address which every one of you understands. Go to a County Council in Ireland and, I have no doubt, Mr. Arthur Griffith would be presented with an address written in Gaelic which neither he nor anybody else in the place would understand... It is a sham and a fraud, the whole of this nationality. View quote
David Lloyd George