Sensitivity

My ancestry is strongly Irish and Injun. Suffrage has two characters with Irish accents. I am doing a reading on Saturday and need to do a passable accent for those characters.

I would prefer not to do the accent on the old Kelly's Chili or Irish Spring soap commercials. So I have been looking for Irish accents to mimic.

My son had an interesting technique. When you make a statement in an Irish accent, make it lilt up on the end as if you were asking a question. So you say, "Let's go to town," in about the same cadence as you say, "Are we going to town?" It seems to work for him.

I found some on YouTube. It is funny that the Irish guys who discuss the accent do not have much of an accent. Then they demonstrate by slipping into the accent. Perhaps that is because if they were really immersed in the accent they would not be able to tell someone what is different about it.

I got a few rules from the Irish guys on YouTube. The "a" sound in "cat" or "that" is a dominant way of saying the short "a." That "a" is broad--drawn out. The long "a," as in hate, is almost another syllable, so that it becomes hayet. An ending "t" on a word is barely there. So "that" is almost "thah." The "th" is usually made into a "d" or a "t." So maybe "that" is almost "dah."

At some point I began to wonder if they were teaching the accent incorrectly, so that they might be able to laugh at us.

I am not afraid of offending any Irish in the reading. I would just like to get it right.