freedom

To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country- these were my objectives. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means.

- Theobald Wolfe Tone

Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dares not vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them... When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

- Robert Emmet

The British government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland ,never can have any right in Ireland

- James Connolly.

They think they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think they have foreseen everything, think that they provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! - they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.

- Padraig Pearse, in oration at funeral in Glasnevin of Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, August 1, 1915.

We bleed that the nation may live. I die that the nation may live. Damn your concessions England, we want our country.

-Seán Mac Diarmada

Ireland that has wronged no man, that has injured no land, that has sought no dominion over others. Ireland is treated today among other nations of the world as if she was a convicted criminal. If it be treason to fight against such an unnatural fate as this, then I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my rebellion with the last drop of my blood.

- Roger Casement

Self government is our right, a thing born to us at birth a thing no more to be doled out to us by another people then the right to life itself then the right to feel the sun or smell the flowers or to love our kind.

- Roger Casement.

We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future.

- Padraig Pearse, at court-martial on day before his execution, May2, 1916.

You cannot conquer Ireland. You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win by a better deed.

- Pádraig Pearse.

As well might you leave the fairies to plough your land or the idle winds to sow it, as sit down and wait for freedom.

- Thomas Davis

The principle I state, and mean to stand on is this, that the ownership of Ireland, moral and material, up to the sun and down to the centre is vested in the people of Ireland.

- James Fintin Lawlor

I want no mercy -I'll have no mercy . . .I'll die as many thousands have died, for the sake of their beloved land and in defence of it. I will die proudly and triumphantly, in defence of republican principals and the liberty of an oppressed people

- William Allen, 1867.