Of course I wrote most of the Constitution myself. I remember hesitating for a long time over the US presidential system. But it wouldn't have done - we were too trained in English democracy to sit down under a dictatorship which is what the American system really is.

The economic and social problems would tend to become, like the military situation, more and more difficult as time went on and we became more and more isolated.

We cannot afford idleness, waste or inefficiency.

Partition is after all only an old fortress of crumbled masonry - held together with the plaster of fiction.

We hope that the plain people - the labourers and small farmers - will take this opportunity of coming together and working out the National programme.

By keeping the annuities, we could build up a national industry every years as big as the Shannon Scheme.

An independent Ireland would see its own independence in jeopardy the moment it saw the independence of Britain seriously threatened. Mutual self-interest would make the peoples of these two islands, if both independent, the closest possible allies in a moment of real national danger to either.

It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards.

All history is man's efforts to realise ideals.

Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.

God has been pleased to save us during the years of war that have already passed. We pray that He may be pleased to save us to the end. But we must do our part.

If war comes upon us, it will come as a thief in the night

For Irishmen, there is no football game to match rugby and if all our young men played rugby not only would we beat England and Wales but France and the whole lot of them put together.

Unemployment is due to the large import of goods from Britain and other countries. The Government haven't used the powers which they have for the benefit of the country.

We are fully aware that, in a world at war, each set of belligerents is over ready to regard those who are not with them as against them but the course we have followed is a just course.