After a meeting between de Valera and British Prime Minister Lloyd George in 1921, the latter stated "I listened to a long lecture on the wrong done by Britain to Ireland starting with Cromwell. When I tried to bring him back to the present day, he would go back to Cromwell again"

After hearing this, de Valera said "Aye, he needed a lesson in Irish history"

"If there is to be any hope of prosperity for this country it is by reversing that policy which made us simply the kitchen garden for supplying the British with cheap food."

"Constitutional nationalism does not align itself with the British Constitution; it aligns itself with the will of the Irish people." (Irish Independent, 29 Oct. 1917; quoted in C. Smyth, Ireland’s Physical Force Tradition Today Lurgan, 1989, p.8)

Article 44 of the Irish Constitution [Bunreacht na hEireann], authored by de Valera, "recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the Citizens".