Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,074
- Location
- London, UK
Oh, yes. Plenty of folks much closer to the region itself than in the US struggle to distinguish West Coast of Scotland, Ayrshire area in particular, from Irish accents and dialects in the Coleraine/Protrush/Portstewart area - parts of Larne area too. Many people in the US seem to assume that the Dublin accent is the "normal" Irish accent, but really that's as representative as saying Tim Curry has a "British" accent. My folks are from Ballymena and Larne originally; they're close to (especially my dad, who is Ballymena born and raised) Liam Neeson (also from Ballymena). I would be the same, but slight softer, having grown up further south. Five miles down the road in Carrickfergus, the accent is much harsher and closer to Belfast, but still subtly different. There are at least four different Belfast accents, according to geography; thanks to the demographics of the city you can also often tell someone's tribal affiliation by their accent, if your ears are sufficiently attuned to it. and on it goes.... The accents in the Six Counties change very markedly in a very tiny geographical distance.
FWIW, James Nesbitt is very typically Coleraine in accent, and the boys in Ash (alternative rock group) are all from the County Down area, and again very typical for their part of the world in accents.
The Northern accents are supposedly the hardest of them all, though I struggle not to sound like a Leprechaun if I try a Dub, alas. (It probably says a lot about my own accent that I can comfortable hold a passable Glasgow all day). The very best take on an East Belfast accent I've ever heard by an outsider was probably David Thewlis (better known as Harry Potter's Lupin) as Dan Starkey in Divorcing Jack, a film which has a wide range of different Northern Ireland accents in it. Derbhla Kirwin I've seen do a flawless middle-class Belfast with no hint of her own Dub. Eddie Izzard (who lived in Northern Ireland for a number of years as a child) can do a very passable accent too, which sounds to me a lot like a Derry accent (think Martin McGuinness).
It's been a long time, but I think I remember Brad Pitt acquitting himself reasonably well in The Devil's Own, which was refreshing after one too many US films and TV shows featuring members of the IRA and like organisations, supposedly Belfast born and bred, sounding like they'd never left County Cork.
Oh..... if you've ever seen PS I love You, Gerard Butler's accent in that was appalling - to the extent I had assumed he'd just given up and used his own Scots' accent for a director that couldn't tell the difference... lol
