First our potatoes start to disappear, then Russia turns down our roses.
And not just your average flower wilting in an abandoned pot kind of rose – a former Rose of Tralee.
Gráinne Boyle, the Dubai Rose 2011, applied for a nanny job in Russia through an employment agency in London. Her Skype interview was Friday March 15th. Today, page 3 of the Daily Mail tells us that she was refused the job because her accent wasn’t “BBC enough”. Gráinne is from Donegal.
Maybe we do speak a different language. Irish is still in there with the maudlin and the waywardness and the way we refuse to speak English as it was intended to be.
This land gave birth to a different language – Irish-English. We all want to be cosmopolitan and part of the wider world, but secretly we really just want to sit down and throw a fada on everything – with some added customary lilt of the voice to go with it.
You can learn to speak Irish-English if you haven't yet grasped it. This voice coach says the main thing he notices is the Irish “i” – pronounced “oi” this side of the water. He also seems to think all Irish people are from Cork – who knew.
Learning Irish-English is no easy task, as some have sadly proven. Let us never forget the actions of many the actor who attempted to speak the language.
Gerard Butler actually apologised for this.
And Tom Cruise didn’t do too well either, the poor divil.
“See you in Church tomorrow in the morn” might be a fine chat-up line, but the naysayers should probably naysay to that one.
Even the bearded gent, the silver fox, the Scottish Bond, failed.The leprechaun can be forgiven.
No-one could forget Kevin Spacey in Ordinary Decent Criminal. “There’s just one little problem getting in his way” - the fact that he can’t speak.And the mother of all accents – Julia Roberts in Michael Collins. She played Kitty Kiernan, the love interest of the man himself. Kitty hails from Co. Longford. Julia does not. Definitely not.
Then there was Alexander. A movie biopic, about Alexander the Great, about Greeks. But Colin Farrell plays Alexander with his natural accent. It might be ok to imagine the blonde-haired, sandal-clad warrior riding his chariot down Henry St but Val Kilmer, who plays his father, speaks with an Irish accent as well. And Jared Leto has to do the same thing playing Alexander's friend Hephaistion. A little Irish crew in the middle of all those Greeks. Nice.
Ridiculous. But Irish-English is a great language with twists and turns and begorrahs and sighs. Maybe it only seems odd outside of its natural habitat of wind and rain.
Maybe it can be too much for some:
I love the Irish accent. But sometimes the Irish speak & I just stare until they speak again... As in - I have no idea what you just said (:
— Charlie MK1 (@Charlie_MK1) February 1, 2013
I borrowed an Iphone yesterday and thought I'd have some fun with Siri but it couldn't understand my Irish accent. SIRI IS RACIST.
— BriBry (@BriBryOnTour) December 28, 2012
In celebration, so far today I have only spoken in an Irish accent. Oddly the only thing I have said is 'Potato'.
— Dawn O'Porter (@hotpatooties) March 17, 2010
Understandable because is there any other country with such a range of different voices? Donegal, Derry, Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Kerry, the West in general and the midlands in general.
There are so many questions. Why do we put the “h” after an “s”? As demonstrated by these delightful turtles. And why do we somehow lose letters like the “o” in “Go away” and the whole of “ood” in “Good luck”. Apostrophes are the greatest of all Irish-English tools.
We also still follow the Irish tradition of answering a verb question with a verb. A simple yay or nay is not enough.
“Did you ever eat a turtle, sir?”
“I did.”
It is an accent beloved and begrudged - not for Russian nannies. But it’s ok Gráinne, you still have the approval of the top man in music, and that’s all that matters really, to be sure.
In Belfast. I love the northern Irish accent
— Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) August 7, 2011
