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Irish people with English accents

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  • 11-08-2017 11:22pm
    #1
    bobbyss
    Registered Users Posts: 5,190 ✭✭✭


    Shane Ross:He must have lived in England for a long time?
    David Norris: Ditto?
    Declan Ganly:Ditto?
    There is a horse racing chap who does the racing, a Robert somebody?
    Charles Mitchell:ex RTE newsreader had a touch of one I believe.
    Martin Manserg;Former senator.
    Brian Farrell RTE
    Chris de Burgh
    Brian O'Connell: Former RTE London correspondent.

    Anyone else?

    How long do you have to live in England to acquire and retain the accent I wonder?


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    #2
    myshirt
    Registered Users Posts: 5,245 ✭✭✭myshirt


    Trace the bloodline. Check the milkman.


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    #3
    jeanjolie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 484 ✭✭jeanjolie


    You don't have to live there...just fake it well enough.

    Certainly better than hearing a rough accent tbh.


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    #4
    AllGunsBlazing
    Registered Users Posts: 3,620 ✭✭✭AllGunsBlazing


    I have older Irish relations like Aunts and Uncles that lived in England since the 60's but only have the slightest trace of English accents while still sounding unmistakably Irish. Meanwhile my sister spends barely a few months in the States but comes back sounding like a cast member from Friends.....


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    #5
    jeanjolie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 484 ✭✭jeanjolie


    AllGunsBlazing wrote: »
    I have older Irish relations like Aunts and Uncles that lived in England since the 60's but only have the slightest trace of English accents while still sound unmistakably Irish. Meanwhile my sister spends a few months n the States but comes back sounding like a cast member from Friends.....

    True but how do you explain Hugh Laurie? He can switch between a perfect English accent and American accent well past his mid-life crisis.


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    #6
    RayM
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,973 ✭✭✭RayM


    bobbyss wrote: »
    Shane Ross:He must have lived in England for a long time?
    David Norris: Ditto?
    Declan Ganly:Ditto?
    There is a horse racing chap who does the racing, a Robert somebody?
    Charles Mitchell:ex RTE newsreader had a touch of one I believe.
    Martin Manserg;Former senator.
    Brian Farrell RTE
    Chris de Burgh
    Brian O'Connell: Former RTE London correspondent.

    Anyone else?

    How long do you have to live in England to acquire and retain the accent I wonder?

    Most of them either grew up in England or went to school there, and simply never lost their accents.


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    #7
    Omackeral
    Registered Users Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    And the kids have totally awesome American twangs.


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    #8
    buried
    Registered Users Posts: 9,676 ✭✭✭buried


    Hat da henduuvdaadaaaaaaaaaay Poot fahkin kettaaal ohhn m8

    "You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats



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    #9
    humberklog
    Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 10,411 Mod ✭✭✭✭humberklog


    Chris De Burgh is Argentinian.


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    #10
    gitzy16v
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,093 ✭✭✭gitzy16v


    jeanjolie wrote: »
    True but how do you explain Hugh Laurie? He can switch between a perfect English accent and American accent well past his mid-life crisis.

    Actor?


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    #11
    stimpson
    Registered Users Posts: 7,815 ✭✭✭stimpson


    jeanjolie wrote: »
    True but how do you explain Hugh Laurie? He can switch between a perfect English accent and American accent well past his mid-life crisis.

    He can't. Apparently to a yank his accent is awful.

    My missus spent her formative years in England but has spent most of her life here. I thought she was an Aussie when I met her.


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    #12
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Fair play to Julio Geordio for keeping his accent.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSXzRWlL7Z0


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    #13
    pickarooney
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 35,099 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    stimpson wrote: »
    He can't. Apparently to a yank his accent is awful.

    My missus spent her formative years in England but has spent most of her life here. I thought she was an Aussie when I met her.

    To which yanks? I've only ever heard the opposite - that Americans are dumbfounded when they find out he's English.


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    #14
    dd972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,563 ✭✭✭dd972


    buried wrote: »
    Hat da henduuvdaadaaaaaaaaaay Poot fahkin kettaaal ohhn m8

    Geordie?, Scouse?, Brummie? Yorkshire? :confused:

    David Norris has a plummy, Irish accent, it's one of those ultra posh ones which sounds as English as possible whilst still being an Irish accent, Brian O'Connell probably spent years there mixing with U.K politico types and picked it up a bit, Declan Ganley, AFAIK was actually born and raised there to Irish parents, don't know about the others, accents are elastic anyway, The Edge out of U2 only sounds mildly Irish probably due to his Welsh parentage, ex Liverpool player Ronnie Whelan could probably pass for a Scouser as he's lived there for yonks, I knew of two brothers with English middle class parents, born and schooled here yet still don't sound completely Irish.


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    #15
    buried
    Registered Users Posts: 9,676 ✭✭✭buried


    dd972 wrote: »
    Geordie?, Scouse?, Brummie? Yorkshire? :confused:

    Brick top. Naaaaahhh poot fahhkin kettall ohhhnnnnnnn M8

    "You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats



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    #16
    dd972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,563 ✭✭✭dd972


    buried wrote: »
    Brick top. Naaaaahhh poot fahhkin kettall ohhhnnnnnnn M8

    Still lost me, unless your saying approximately 60 million people in that country reside between Barking and Basildon, and the rest is all arable land.


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    #17
    buried
    Registered Users Posts: 9,676 ✭✭✭buried


    dd972 wrote: »
    Still lost me, unless your saying approximately 60 million people in that country reside between Barking and Basildon, and the rest is all arable land.

    Stay fahhkin lost m8, eye'lll poot fahhkin kettall ohhn mahohhnfahkinselllf

    "You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats



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    #18
    r93kaey5p2izun
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,962 ✭✭✭r93kaey5p2izun


    pickarooney wrote: »
    To which yanks? I've only ever heard the opposite - that Americans are dumbfounded when they find out he's English.

    Same here. I had a housemate from Colorado who didn't believe me when I said he was English. (Also Idris Elba.)


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    #19
    mzungu
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,306 Mod ✭✭✭✭mzungu


    bobbyss wrote: »
    Shane Ross:He must have lived in England for a long time?
    David Norris: Ditto?
    Declan Ganly:Ditto?
    There is a horse racing chap who does the racing, a Robert somebody?
    Charles Mitchell:ex RTE newsreader had a touch of one I believe.
    Martin Manserg;Former senator.
    Brian Farrell RTE
    Chris de Burgh
    Brian O'Connell: Former RTE London correspondent.

    Anyone else?

    How long do you have to live in England to acquire and retain the accent I wonder?
    A fair chunk of Jackie's Army.


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    #20
    Lia_lia
    Registered Users Posts: 6,691 ✭✭✭Lia_lia


    Most of the hippie crowd down in West Cork have English accents. A parent/both parents would have been English but these people have lived in Ireland their whole lives and have proper English accents. It's a bit weird.

    I was born in England and lived there for a few years. Had an English accent till I was about 11 but started putting on an Irish accent till it became my accent. Having an English accent in school in Kerry is bullying material!


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    #21
    Lia_lia
    Registered Users Posts: 6,691 ✭✭✭Lia_lia


    AllGunsBlazing wrote: »
    I have older Irish relations like Aunts and Uncles that lived in England since the 60's but only have the slightest trace of English accents while still sounding unmistakably Irish.


    I was on a call at work the other day with a guy in the UK. He had a very distinctive Killarney accent... Not Kerry but Killarney! Could get it straight away. He'd been living in the UK for 40 or so years and when I asked where he was from he was indeed from Killarney. Went to the same school as my brother. Not a hint of an English accent.


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    #22
    andekwarhola
    Registered Users Posts: 4,638 ✭✭✭andekwarhola


    AllGunsBlazing wrote: »
    I have older Irish relations like Aunts and Uncles that lived in England since the 60's but only have the slightest trace of English accents while still sounding unmistakably Irish. Meanwhile my sister spends barely a few months in the States but comes back sounding like a cast member from Friends.....

    My Da lived there nearly 30 years (mid teens to mid 40s) and never lost his strong culchie accent.

    Likes of Norris presumably have English parents although he was an English professor so it's maybe also a career related affectation.

    On a related point, one thing that always strikes me when watching old Irish media clips (like Reeling In The Years) is that we had our own Irish version of received pronunciation in the media and establishment here - an almost British-inflected (to my ears at least) Irish accent until, like Britain, you began to hear regional accents on the airwaves and television in more recent times.
    Lia_lia wrote: »
    I was born in England and lived there for a few years. Had an English accent till I was about 11 but started putting on an Irish accent till it became my accent. Having an English accent in school in Kerry is bullying material!

    Same except replace Kerry with inner city Dublin at the height of the hunger strikes :pac:


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    #23
    Esel
    Registered Users Posts: 22,002 ✭✭✭✭Esel


    It's all about the plums.

    Not your ornery onager



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    #24
    dd972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,563 ✭✭✭dd972


    Lia_lia wrote: »
    I was on a call at work the other day with a guy in the UK. He had a very distinctive Killarney accent... Not Kerry but Killarney! Could get it straight away. He'd been living in the UK for 40 or so years and when I asked where he was from he was indeed from Killarney. Went to the same school as my brother. Not a hint of an English accent.

    I wouldn't go as far to say the chap harboured any anglophobic sentiments, however I do believe that most Irish people would sub-consciously resist any natural morphing or accent change that might naturally happen after being in a place for a length of time if that place is England, we don't want to be known as or thought of as English, whereas I've encountered Irish-born people who've lived in the U.S or Canada for years and they seem more relaxed about letting a twang from those places enter their voices, even if it's unintended.

    An English accent is rejected as the antithesis of an Irish one, even if you had Irish parents, a gealicised name and spoke fluent Irish, anything to do with an English birthplace or accent automatically renders someone 'not Irish' and 'not one of our special tribe' for some.


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    #25
    guppy
    Registered Users Posts: 484 ✭✭guppy


    bobbyss wrote: »
    Shane Ross:He must have lived in England for a long time?
    David Norris: Ditto?
    Declan Ganly:Ditto?
    There is a horse racing chap who does the racing, a Robert somebody?
    Charles Mitchell:ex RTE newsreader had a touch of one I believe.
    Martin Manserg;Former senator.
    Brian Farrell RTE
    Chris de Burgh
    Brian O'Connell: Former RTE London correspondent.

    Anyone else?

    How long do you have to live in England to acquire and retain the accent I wonder?

    I worked with a man, he retired 2 months ago, whom I would have said was English. He absolutely was not (he's Irish), but the accent on him was middle class British.

    I'm not sure if the fact he's Jewish by birth (not in practice) had anything to do with his accent, as in, the people who educated him had that accent, or not.

    My very English partner has been here for almost 20 years and has no trace of an Irish accent. In fact, his attempts at one are still appalling :-)


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    #26
    Esel
    Registered Users Posts: 22,002 ✭✭✭✭Esel


    guppy wrote: »
    My very English partner has been here for almost 20 years and has no trace of an Irish accent. In fact, his attempts at one are still appalling :-)

    As in "Tap o' de marnin', Sir." ?

    Not your ornery onager



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    #27
    AllGunsBlazing
    Registered Users Posts: 3,620 ✭✭✭AllGunsBlazing


    To be fair, I would have said that David Norris had more of a posh Irish accent - as opposed to an English one. I'd certainly struggle to pinpoint what part of England his tone of speech reflects.

    He just pronounces everything very D-E-L-I-B-E-R-A-T-E-L-Y.


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    #28
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Lia_lia wrote: »
    I was on a call at work the other day with a guy in the UK. He had a very distinctive Killarney accent... Not Kerry but Killarney! Could get it straight away. He'd been living in the UK for 40 or so years and when I asked where he was from he was indeed from Killarney. Went to the same school as my brother. Not a hint of an English accent.

    Not unlike Cork city...kinda...high pitched. Killarney accent is very distinct, that "hiya" that Killarney middle aged women say, give away every time.


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    #29
    DEFTLEFTHAND
    Registered Users Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    Wouldn't bat an eye to it.

    Love England and their diverse selection of accents.

    Apart from the north crowd, Newcastle, Sunderland Middlesbrough. Good God Almighty. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

    Too much shipyard thug for me. I find it very hard to understand these creatures.

    Maybe actually we the Irish and the English both have something in common. We both hate our nordies, and both were former ship building regions.


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    #30
    FTA69
    Registered Users Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    jeanjolie wrote: »
    You don't have to live there...just fake it well enough.

    Certainly better than hearing a rough accent tbh.

    Decolonise your mind.


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    #31
    DEFTLEFTHAND
    Registered Users Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    FTA69 wrote: »
    Decolonise your mind.

    The title of my next album.


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