Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like to place on the record a point of information relating to the Pope Francis's connection with Ireland. I will be very brief and read from an interview he gave where he spoke about his favourite books. He said that he had read The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni three times, that it was on his table because he liked to read it again and again and because Manzoni had given him so much and that when he was a child, his grandmother had taught him the beginning of it by heart: "That branch of Lake Como that turns off to the south between two unbroken chains of mountains." In the same breath, he said: "I also liked Gerard Manley Hopkins very much."

This emphasises his Irish connection.