http://www.archive.org/details/irish_impressions_0906_rc_librivox1

LibriVox recording of Irish Impressions by G. K. Chesterton, read by Ray Clare.

For the Irish Question has never been discussed in England. Men have discussed Home Rule; but those who advocated it most warmly, and as I think wisely, did not even know what the Irish meant by Home. Men have talked about Unionism; but they have never even dared to propose Union. A Unionist ought to mean a man who is not even conscious of the boundary of the two countries; who can walk across the frontier of fairyland, and not even notice the walking haystack. As a fact, the Unionist always shoots at the haystack; though he never hits it. But the limitation is not limited to Unionists; as I have already said, the English Radicals have been quite as incapable of going to the root of the matter. Half the case for Home Rule was that Ireland could not be trusted to the English Home Rulers. They also, to recur to the parable, have been unable to take the talking cow by the horns; for I need hardly say that the talking cow is an Irish bull. What has been the matter with their Irish politics was simply that they were English politics. They discussed the Irish Question; but they never seriously contemplated the Irish Answer.” (Quotation from Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

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Artist/Composer: G. K. Chesterton
Date: 2009-06-08
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: LibriVox; audio books; essays; Ireland


Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Chapter 1 - Two Stones in a Square             15:15
Chapter 2 - The Root of Reality                30:13
Chapter 3 - The Family and the Feud            22:19
Chapter 4 - The Paradox of Labor               26:58
Chapter 5 - The Englishman in Ireland          23:03
Chapter 6 - The Mistake of England             28:24
Chapter 7 - The Mistake of Ireland             32:46
Chapter 8 - An Example and a Question          37:09
Chapter 9 - Belfast and the Religious Problem  41:41