IRECENTLY read that my accent is one of the most unpleasant to the English ear, which did not, to be honest, come as any great surprise.
The unpopularity of the Birmingham accent is well known. What might not be so well known is that for those of us with that accent, some million people or so, that unpopularity matters not one jot.
Those of us who have what is bizarrely known in Britain as regional accents, ie not those of the south-east, ie the majority of people in and from that country, are not overly self-conscious about the sounds of our voices.
We know we sound as we are suppose to sound. The accent faker can always be spotted a mile off.
Of course, in an Irish context, accent is a very complex issue. Irish people are identified not by their own language but by their accented English, the so-called HibernoEnglish.
Within that there are all kinds of intonations and phrases and words and usages of English that come directly from Irishness.
Those of us lucky enough to have grown up amongst the Irish in Britain would have become aware at some stage or another of the range of Irish accents around us, far, far more than if we had grown up in Ireland itself.
In an Irish social club in Britain in the ’70s and ’80s all of the counties could be found.
And, of course, we were soon aware that our parents were marked by the accents they carried in a different country.
Accent has always been part of our experience.
It is true too that for many of us the Irish accent also produced a sense of yearning.
Whilst we quite genuinely used Irish sayings or phrases in our speech we knew that the biggest barrier between us and acceptance of our Irishness was our British voices.
Sure, the urge to fake it was there. Sure, the urge to ham it up a bit. But, you know, we get over that. I think they call it maturity.
After a while we realise that we don’t need to sound like our fathers and mothers to be Irish.
We realise that we can’t sound like our fathers and mothers.
We realise that to do so would be a lie. Your accent, after all, speaks of who you are.
Even after 11 years of being here, if I go around with a Cork accent, people are going to be a little surprised if I tell them I was born and grew up in Birmingham and lived in England until I was in my 30s.
You do not hear a lot of accents on Irish television and radio.
You just hear the one. The RTÉ equivalent of the BBC voice.
Very strong Cork or Dublin accents only really appear as characters in a drama. They do not read the news or do silky voiceovers. Indeed something like the Dublin accent is only heard if it is that of a character who is a criminal.
The other thing I read about my accent was that some linguists suggest it has its tone because the inhabitants of Birmingham could not breath properly during the foul polluted air of the Industrial Revolution.
Hence our nasal accents. I don’t know whether that is true or not but I like the idea of it. I like the idea of an accent so grounded in history.
Unlike the accent of one young Irishwoman I heard on the radio recently telling Pat Kenny about her experiences in the recession.
She spoke with that strange accent that so many people now seem to have adopted. You know the one.
One where the voice is raised at the end of the sentence and your ear thinks a question may have been asked.
I have heard this accent described as some kind of hybrid AustralianAmerican-media offspring.
An accent created by watching soap operas. Or MTV.
Is that not strange?
Is that not bizarre?
Would sounding like that not be a little peculiar?
What kind of fakery is that?
Does anyone around anybody who has developed such an accent not believe it sounds even a little odd?
How does an Irish accent developed over years and years of regional, local history and the loss of a native language become in the space of a few years something shaped by television programmes?
Is the media truly so pervasive?
So my accent may not be about to win any charm of the year awards. But it reminds me of who I am. And at least I know its mine.