Hints and Tips - Irish Accents..?

Question

I need to put on an irish accent in a drama play. its for my exam so its urgent.. any advice ?

Answer 1

Get films that have Irish actors in them. Also choose whether you are acting a southern Irish accent or northern. They are totally different. If you are doing a northern Ireland one I would recommend the film in the name of the father with Daniel Day Lewis. If you can watch an Irish documentary that will help too but that will probably be hard to find, or learn from an Irish person directly. It will be difficult to get the accent right, you don't want to sound like a caricature. Most English people think that they can do an OK Irish accent but to us it sounds really bad, as bad as Dick van Dyke doing a cockney accent in Mary Poppins. Hope my advice helps. Good luck :)

Answer 2

Yes. Don't.

Seriously. There are as many different Irish accents as there are English accents and indeed Scottish accents, and I would seriously advise you not to try to do one. My reason is this: if you're being graded on your acting, then if you're worrying about your accent your acting will suck as a result. If you're being graded on your accent, and you don't know anything about Irish accents, then a.) your examiners must be idiots and b.) you have almost no chance of learning a decent one without a professional voice coach.

Having said that, OK, where you can get access to specific Irish accents?

Working-class inner city Dublin: the movies 'The Snapper', 'The Van' and to a lesser extent 'The Commitments' feature actors who can do this very difficult accent very well. It's difficult because the consonants are quite soft and the vowel sounds are pretty elaborate. (The reason 'The Commitments' isn't a good model is that most of the main actors in it aren't professional actors, and can't even do their own accents convincingly.) The movie 'Adam & Paul' is another film that features main characters with very strong examples of this accent. There are a lot of Dublin accents, though; one which is very familiar to Dubliners is what's called the 'Dublin 4' accent, a rather oily mid-Atlantic honk named after the most prosperous postal district in the city, and utterly unlike the inner-Dublin accent.

Midlands: the TV series 'Pure Mule' features the seldom-heard and distinctively level and close-mouthed midland accent.

Cork: the film 'Disco Pigs' is about characters from Cork, although I haven't seen it so I can't vouch for the authenticity of the accents. A poor second best might be the film 'Michael Collins'; Liam Neeson, who's from the North of Ireland, plays the title character who was from Cork, and doesn't do a terrible job, but he's not great.

The West: I've never seen a decent film that had characters with plausible West of Ireland accents.

Northern: again, as many different kinds of Northern accents as there are Dublin accents, almost certainly more so. Derry is as unlike Belfast as Donegal is unlike Armagh. I wouldn't even try without professional coaching. The only source I can think of is the rather rubbish BBC Northern Ireland comedy show 'Give My Head Peace', which does respect a certain difference between working-class Catholic and working-class Protestant accents.

In general, Irish accents tend to have very specific vowel sounds depending on the area the speaker is from, and tend to be enunciated more towards the back of the mouth, rather than at the front. There are, as I've tried to show, a bewildering variety of them, and all I can really urge you to do is find some way of taking the exam without having to do some sort of 'generic' Irish accent, because there is no such thing.

Answer 3

1 of the main characteristics of the Southern Irish accent is the 'soft' t & d sound. It's difficult to describe in words - an english person will say 'that' with a sharply articulated 't' at the end - an Irish person will say 'that' with a much softer 't'. Another example is 'r.' If an English person talks about seeing 'Claire on a clear day.' You won't hear the 'r' at the end of 'Claire' or 'clear.' An Irish person will pronounce the 'r' in both cases. Try to watch some Irish TV or listen to some Irish radio. Good luck.

Answer 4

The comment about N. Ireland is important, where in Ireland does the character come from?

Anyway the solution is simple. Kansas University's website has a collection of accents free for download, and these are the Irish ones:

http://web.ku.edu/idea/europe/ireland/ireland.htm

Find the one that most closely matches the character you're playing and then download it, play it, listen to it, try to duplicate the sounds, record what you're doing, play it back and just keep trying.

Remember: What you hear yourself saying, is not what other people hear ... you have to get an objective listener, which could be another person or could be a recording you can play back.

Good luck.

Answer 5

Decide which county you are supposed to be from and then listen to someone from that county speaking. Truly, every county in Ireland has it's own unique accent. The singlemost worst Irish accent ever perpetrated on an innocent cinemagoer was the one used by Kevin Spacey in 'Ordinary Decent Criminal'. DON'T listen to that!
Try and get a copy of 'The Committments' if you have to do a Dublin Accent. Good Luck!

Answer 6

Do yourself a favor and listen to tapes or CD's of people with Irish Accents, bearing in mind that there are numerous variations. Kerry is not the same as Dublin is not the same as Cork is not the same as Derry, etc.

Listen for the rhythms and changes in tone.

If you have time, get a hold of a "Teach Yourself Irish" or "Buntus Cainte" tape and learn some of the language. That always helps.

Answer 7

You will need soft vowels, hard consonants, and lyrical inflection, all of which are discussed at the website below.
SOYOUWANNA SPEAK WITH AN IRISH ACCENT? with lots of hits and tips and "some vital pointers on how to tap into the emerald vein of charming and lyrical elocution." It also recommends which videos and Irish films are best to emulate the accents from.

Answer 8

Can you watch The Quiet Man movie and listen to Barry Fitzgerald he plays the part of little man the match maker worth a listen .Good luck to ya i be sayin .

Answer 9

Ya dorty yong spalpeen, ya'll keep a civil tong en yor head ar I'll call da focken gerdes.

Answer 10

just watch as many irish tv shows/ films as possible.
good luck!