Being born a Kerryman, in my opinion, is the greatest gift that God can bestow on any man. When you belong to Kerry, you know you have a head start on the other fellow ... In belonging to Kerry, you belong to the elements. You belong to the spheres spinning in the heavens.
John B. Keane in Jimmy Woulfe’s Voices of Kerry
One wonders in these places why anyone is left in Dublin, or London, or Paris, when it would be better, one would think, to live in a tent or hut with this magnificent sea and sky, and to breathe this wonderful air, which is like wine in one’s teeth.
JM Synge, John M Synge in West Kerry
It is my belief that anybody who misuses the apostrophe is capable of anything.
Con Houlihan, ‘Con Houlihan: Avoiding a spell of trouble’, the Herald, June 15, 2011
There wasn’t as much lean in them as you’d draw with a solitary stroke of a red biro.
John B Keane on a Kerryman describing fat rashers
I don’t want any costly coffin. If a plain box is good enough for the Pope a middle price coffin is good enough for me. Too good, maybe. Soon as the coffin arrives pop me in, screw down the lid and tell those who want to stare at me to shove off. When they didn’t come to admire me when I was worth looking at, I don’t want them peering me when I can’t see what they’re thinking about me.
Funeral instructions written by Sigerson Clifford in October 1984, and preserved in Cahersiveen Library
As a young child my father often told me: Tóg go bog é agus bogfaidh sé chugat. The essence of my father’s message was that if we say ‘Yes’ to life and not resist or fight it, then life will come freely, gently and fully.
Sr Stanislaus Kennedy, I am of Kerry
All you have is your word. If you haven’t a word, you have nothing.
Jackie Healy-Rae, as quoted by his son, Danny, at his funeral in Kilgarvan
Taken in good measure Christmas is the best of all known antidotes for bitterness
John B. Keane, The Little Book of John B Keane
Love is a thing that torment and torture follows and often it’s not lasting, and it’s a small thing that upsets it.
Peig Sayers, An Old Woman’s Reflections
How can I go aisy when my own grandchild is for sale like an animal?
Nanna in Sive by John B Keane on the proposed arranged marriage for her granddaughter
Thirty years in Dáil Éireann and never opened his mouth except to pick his teeth.
John B Keane, The Little Book of John B Keane
Sugar Daddy is back.
Former councillor Niall Botty O’Callaghan introducing Jackie Healy-Rae to the crowd at a victory rally, YouTube, May 28th, 2007
I do not take lectures on democracy from a Trotskyite communist like Deputy Joe Higgins.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, April 2003, www.oireachtas.ie
Mike Quill was a fighter for decent things all his life – Irish independence, labor organization, and racial equality. He spent his life ripping the chains of bondage off his fellow man. When the totality of a man’s life is consumed with enriching the lives of others, this is a man the ages will remember – this is a man who has passed on but who has not died.
The tribute paid in 1966 by Martin Luther King jnr to Michael J Quill, the Kilgarvan man who emigrated to New York in 1926 and founded the Transport Workers Union of America in 1934.From Michael Quill, Himself: A Memoir, by Shirley Quill
A Kerry footballer with an inferiority complex is one who thinks he’s just as good as everybody else.
John B Keane
Mike Sheehy was running up to take the kick – and suddenly Paddy (Cullen) dashed back towards his goal like a woman who smells a cake burning. The ball won the race and it curled inside the near post as Paddy crashed into the outside of the net and lay against it like a fireman who had returned to find his station ablaze.
Con Houlihan’s report on the Kerry vs Dublin All-Ireland football final, the Evening Press, 1978
Two tricks? What are they? Is it putting the ball in the net and the ball over the bar?
A Kerry football fan in the Abbey Tavern, Tralee, responds to RTÉ analyst Martin McHugh’s statement in August 2014 that Colm “Gooch” Cooper was a “two-trick pony”. The fan’s response was given to me by Kerry’s Eye sports editor Jim O’Gorman.
I swear to God, my mother would be faster than most of those three fellas and she has a bit of arthritis in the knee.
Pat Spillane on the RTÉ halftime analysis of the 2002 All-Ireland Final in which Armagh went on to beat Kerry. He said the remark was made tongue-in-cheek in relation to the Armagh full-back line.
Maurice Ignatius Keane. 18 and half stone of prime Irish beef on the hoof, I don’t know about the opposition but he frightens the living daylights out of me.
Rugby commentator Bill McLaren, as quoted in the Daily Telegraph, October 5th, 2010
One evening, as I was leaving the chapel after benediction, I asked the Reverend Mother what a mother was. My question seemed to cause her some anxiety and she quickly brushed me along the corridor to supper.
Michael Clemenger, Holy Terrors. A Boy. Two Brothers. A Stolen Childhood.
I’m alone now but I’m free and not too many women can say that. But I need not be alone, and that’s the beauty.
John B Keane, Big Maggie
Éamon Kelly gave me great advice – he said you’re nowhere without a good woman to your back, and then added – but that’s not where you want her . . .
Michael Colgan, The Kerryman, November 19th, 1999
The Wit and Wisdom of Kerry (Mercier Press, €14.99), compiled by journalist Breda Joy, is a collection of quotes and extracts from natives and blow-ins describing the incomparable Kerry character and landscape. Under 16 headings, the collection journeys from the sublime to the ridiculous, stopping off at assorted stations in between
