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Breton Humors
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Liam's London Diary
I had some double glazing fitted recently and when they knocked out the bedroom window a large chunk of plaster fell off the wall. "Don?t worry about it", said the genial fitter, "We?ll have the plasterer up in no time at all".
A short time later the Irish plasterer arrived in baseball cap and a recommendation from neighbours that he was agreeable and knew his job. As is customary when Irish people meet in London you ask what county they are from and this breaks the ice and leads into conversation. This mode of introduction is now been challenged by the politically correct, who are growing out of every woodwork. I suppose it?s something to do with invasion of privacy or maybe the lack of imagination in finding a more subtle way to initiate a communication.
Anyhow I said to the plasterer where are you from in Ireland?
-"I?m an Offaly man", he said, "And where are you from yourself" he replied.
When I said that I was from Dublin, born and reared just a mile from the city centre in what is now described as a town house, he looked me straight in the eye and said:
-"You haven?t got a Dublin accent".
I have had this comment many times before and it always shakes me to my boots. One of the most fundamental characteristics for an Irish person is his accent and if this is challenged, your inner soul is laid bare and held up to scrutiny.
In a manner of speaking you are accused of being a fraud. |
I know that I haven?t got a real Dublin accent because, as I explained to myself, my father came from the country, Co. Kilkenny, and my mother was a Dub. This combination toned down the deep throat Dublin sound and gave me a more neutral accent. Also where I was born in Dublin in Shandon Drive, Phibsboro, we all spoke like I did because we lived in our private houses and wanted to differentiate ourselves from the council tenants who lived across Connaught street bridge in Cabra and spoke with real Dublin accents. Part of their local fun was to take the mickey out of the refined tones of our red bricked community. To prove a point when growing up they would launch raiding parties of children in box carts and hatchets made of flattened tins on sticks and proceed to frighten the life out of the nicely spoken Shandon kids. The leader of these raids was a youth called Rafferty and on hearing his whooping approach it would feel like Geronimo on the warpath.
| This whole question of accent has caused me to challenge my Dublin identity. Inside I feel reasonably Dublin. I was born there, I went to school there, I worked there, I played football for the Dublin minors there, I partied there, what more do you have to do to be a true Dubliner? I seem to keep on meeting people from the Liberties or Cork street or Gardiner street areas of Dublin who have no question about their lineage and it would never cross their mind to think of themselves as anything but a real true blue. They have an indelible birth stamp saying genuine, 14 carat, game ball. |
I have now been living in London for many years and, it seems to be a bit strange, but as I get older I am becoming more Irish than I ever was. But this is not quite the same thing as being a Dubliner. You cannot grow into being a Dub. It has to be inherent like the slope of your smile or the look in your eye. Its integral. It would be nice to re-educate myself to Dublin ways. To stand on Hill 16 and cheer on the sky blues, to sip a ball of malt ( a large whiskey) in a real Dublin pub where generations have celebrated and commiserated, to chat and have a coffee in Bewleys of Grafton Street. To see and be seen. To be a Dublin man again - unchallenged. It would be nice if they said, come home, come home, you?re one of our own, you?re a true blue. |
On Grafton street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion?s pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.
On Raglan Road Patrick Kavanagh
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