Flashman on Ireland

Gladstone was standing brooding ove a basin in a nonconformist way, offensively sober as usual, when I staggered in middling tight.
       “Hollo, old ’un says I. “Marching orders at last, hey? Ne’er mind, it happens to all of us. It’s this damned Irish business, I suppose — ” for as you know, he was always fussing over Ireland; no one knew what to do about it, and while the Paddies seemed to be in favour of leaving the lace and going to America, Gladstone was trying to make them keep it; something like that.
      “Where you went wrong,” I told him, “was in not giving the place back to the Pope long ago, and apologising for the condition it’s in.”

Flashman and the Tiger, p.293, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, William Gladstone.

Prattle and tea

I sat in his kitchen while he prattled Irishly and made tea.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.76, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, kitchen.

In which Lt. Flashman reviews the tactics of Sir Hugh Gough

I caught my breath in horror, for it was Ferozeshah all over again, with that raving old spud-walloper risking everything on the sabre and the bayonet, hand to hand — but then the Sikhs were groggy from Moodkee, in positions hastily dug and manned, while now the were entrenched in a miniature Torres Vedras, with ditch-and-dyke works twenty feet high, enfiladed by murderous camel-swivels and packed with tulwar-swinging lunatics fairly itching to die for the Guru. You can’t do it, Paddy, thinks I, it won’t answer this time, you’ll break your great thick Irish head against this fortress of shot and steel, and have your army torn to ribbons, and lose the war, and never see Tipperary again, you benighted old bog-trotter, you —


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.331, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, tactics.

An old Irishman

…a continuous roar of explosions, shaking the ground underfoot, reverberating through the mists of the morning. Beyond our view, on the southern shore, an old Irishman in a white coat was beating his shillelagh on the Khalsa’s door, and with a sinking heart I realized I had come a bare hour too late. The battle of Sobraon had begun.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.325, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, shillelagh.

The likely Mr Nugent-Hare

… when he dismounted, it was like a seal sliding off a rock. Gentleman-ranker, thinks I, bog-Irish gentry, village school, seen inside Dublin Castle, no doubt, but no rhino for a commission. a very easy, likely lad, with a lazy smile and a long nose.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.66, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, seal.

Heavy breathing

I could hear Kavanaugh breathing heavily - the brute positively panted in Irish...

Flashman in the Great Game, p.253, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, Irish.

Ever the diplomat, our Flash

Such conditions of squalor, half the year in stifling heat, half in unimaginable cold, and all spent in back-breaking labour, are probably enough to explain why they [Russian serfs] were such an oppressed, dirty, brutish, useless people – just like the Irish, really, but without the gaiety.

Flashman at the Charge, p.144, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Irish, Russians.

Human trade

With our second mate dead and our third apparently dying, I found myself having to work for a living. Even with men who knew their business as well as these, it’s no easy matter to pack six hundred terrified, stupid niggers* into a slave deck; it’s worse than putting Irish infantry into a troopship.

Flash For Freedom!, p.86, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

*Flashman's use of racial epitahs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be taken as tacit support of his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Can't mount a rebellion

…they expected the Paddies to rise at any time, and there was talk of Dublin being besieged. All humbug of course; you can’t mount a rebellion on rotten potatoes.

Flash For Freedom!, p.29, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Snaps she

‘The devil take your explanation!’ snaps she, and her Irish was as thick as Paddy’s head.

Royal Flash, p.264, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

Their new son

…an Irish subaltern and his young wife got me to stand godfather to their new son, who was launched into life with the appalling name of Flashman O’Toole…

Flashman, p.251, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Flashman O’Toole.