Kerry Accent Again.

April 15, 2017 by 8 Comments

I know we just recently enjoyed the distinctive Kerry accent, but I can’t resist bringing you this RTE News story about farmer Mikey Joe O’Shea, who is upset about the theft of some of his sheep. (Don’t bother making “Ewe-ro” jokes; Twitter is way ahead of you.) Thanks, Trevor!

Comments

  1. mollymooly says
    April 15, 2017 at 10:50 pm

    Here’s my best guess for Mikey Joe O’Shea:

    #1

    Well, there’s a fine mark on them; there’s red and, viewing them and, anyone can see it, a fine mark on them.

    #2

    -po, so by night, there’d be a full moon there every night and ’tisn–, sure, ‘twould be bright out and the[n] could anyone go up on the mountainside by night, sure.

    Well there was forty-five sheep missing, like, and the lambs and everything and the sheep; ’tis co–, ’tis come to a nice bit of money, like. [Wha]t can be done about it? Nothing.

    Richie Griffin’s pronunciation of ewe as “yo” is usual among Irish farmers. I also loved his “some moonshine night” and may use it in that country song I’m not writing.

    Reporter Sean Mac an tSithigh also has a Kerry accent.

    Aengus Mac Grianna in the studio has, to my ears, a strange neo-Dublin accent with flecks of BBC.

  2. John Cowan says
    April 15, 2017 at 11:37 pm

    I played back just that bit several times, and I think it’s moon-fine night.

  3. ryan says
    April 16, 2017 at 12:28 am

    I’m pretty sure the second farmer got away with saying on national tv “whoever’s doing it knows wtf he’s doing.”

  4. Piotr Gąsiorowski says
    April 16, 2017 at 8:57 am

    mollymooly: Richie Griffin’s pronunciation of ewe as “yo” is usual among Irish farmers.

    Ditto in (slightly dated?) Scots, as in:

    There’s mair as ae yowe o the brae face (i.e. as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it),

    and, most famously:

    Ca’ the yowes to the knowes…

    The dialectal reflexes of OE eowu (with a short diphthong) are quite varied.

  5. mollymooly says
    April 16, 2017 at 9:08 am

    It’s not wtf, it’s “what” with the initial wh- pronounced fw-

  6. languagehat says
    April 16, 2017 at 9:09 am

    And then there’s Hugh MacDiarmid’s “Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle” (‘One wet early evening in the cold weather after sheep-shearing’), which I’m pleased to see is in the DSL yowe entry.

  7. mollymooly says
    April 16, 2017 at 10:25 am

    “there’s red and, viewing them” –> “there’s red and blue in them”.

  8. maidhc says
    April 17, 2017 at 4:47 am

    Found in Australia:

    Fixed is his gaze on the bare-bellied yo
    Glory if he gets her won’t he make the ringer go

    (“Click Go the Shears”, a parody of Henry Clay Work’s “Ring the Bell Watchman”)

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