Politics & Power Quote by Bernadette Devlin

Devlin’s line lands like a slap because it refuses Ireland the comforting export version of itself: pious, poetic, morally coherent. She borrows the outsider’s quip ("One American said...") not to soften the blow but to sharpen it. By filtering the indictment through an American voice, she smuggles in the tone of tourist curiosity - and then twists it into a moral verdict. The punch is in the last three words: "And they do!" It’s not a debate prompt; it’s a receipt.

The intent is double-edged. Devlin skewers sectarian violence by yoking it to the language that supposedly forbids it. "In the name of Jesus Christ" is doing heavy work: it’s not just hypocrisy, it’s sacrilege dressed up as righteousness. The phrase "Holy Ireland" drips with irony, aimed at a culture where Catholic identity and national identity were often fused, and where that fusion could become a license for cruelty rather than a brake on it.

Context matters: Devlin emerged from the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland and became a rare, blunt public voice during the opening years of the Troubles. Her politics were animated by class and anti-sectarian solidarity, which makes her framing strategic. She’s not merely condemning individual prejudice; she’s indicting a social order that baptizes division, where religious labels are less theology than tribal ID. The line works because it exposes the absurdity without letting anyone laugh their way out of responsibility.