Irish Historical Archive

The man is thine, O Emer, He has broken from me, O noble wife, No less, the thing that my hand cannot reach, I am fated to desire it. Many men were seeking me Both in shelters and in secret places; My tryst was never made with them, Because I myself was high-minded. Joyless she who gives love to one Who does not heed her love; It were better for her to be destroyed If she be not loved as she loves. With fifty women hast thou come hither, Noble Emer, of the yellow locks, To overthrow Fand, it were not well To kill her in her misery. Three times fifty have I there, —Beautiful, marriageable women,— Together with me in the fort: They will not abandon me. The Lamentation of Fand When She Is About to Leave Cú Chulainn - The Poem-Book of the Gael (1913)

Right noble and valiant defenders of your country and liberty, let us consider with what nations and for what causes we are now about to wage battle. That enemy of his country, that tyrant of his people, and foe of all men, who was formerly driven out of the land, is now returned with the support of foreign troops, and bent on the general ruin of the state. Envious of his country’s welfare, he has brought in a foreign race, that, by the aid of a fierce and detested nation, he may be able to inflict upon us the mischief to which his own strength was unequal. Himself an enemy, he has called in our greatest national enemy; a people who have long aimed at being lords over him as well as over all of us, and give out that the dominion of our land justly belongs to them, and is even destined to them by ancient prophecies. Speech by Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair to the Men of Ireland - The Conquest of Ireland, Giraldus Cambrensis (1189)

Naked I saw thee, O beauty of beauty! And I blinded my eyes For fear I should flinch. I heard thy music, O sweetness of sweetness! And I shut my ears For fear I should fail. I kissed thy lips, O sweetness of sweetness! And I hardened my heart For fear of my ruin. I blinded my eyes, And my ears I shut, I hardened my heart And my love I quenched. I turned my back On the dream I had shaped, And to this road before me My face I turned. I set my face To the road here before me, To the work that I see, To the death that I shall meet. Ideal - Pádraig Mac Piarais (Patrick Henry Pearse)