New website tries to teach Americans the Irish accent’s gift of the gab

THE Irish accent’s sexual allure is known the world over. Foreigners love our accent for its soft vowels and the lyrical lilt of out voice.

Especially when we utter words like ‘langer’.

And we’re not talking a load of Blarney here.

Every year we see thousands of souls arrive on these shores trying to soak up the accent and replicate it. But even the big shot actors from America and Britain make a bags of it.

Tom Cruise is paid a squillion dollars for every flick he makes. How many Scientology churches could he have built for massacring the Irish brogue in Far and Away? At least his co-star and ex-wife Nicole Kidman could be excused for her poor attempt — she looks Irish with the auld red hair.

Fortunately, help is at hand to help those who want to sound Irish, er, sound sort of Irish. A website has been launched to make Buck and Cindy speak more like Brendan and Colette.

The tongue-in-cheek website www.soyouwanna.com claims the soft vowels, hard consonants, and lyrical inflection of the Irish are what has allowed, as they put it, “men with the dreadful faces of Bono and Stephen Rea to come to be considered sex symbols”.

“Obviously the first thing to learn is how the phonemes sound differently in the Irish vernacular, so that you can work on pronouncing your words like a native,” the website advises. “But perhaps something more important to bear in mind is that it’s not just the way Paddies say things, it’s what they say. To sound convincingly Irish, you’ll need to add a new lexicon to your vocabulary.”

An example it gives is what it claims will be “the first phrase you’ll utter in your Irish disguise”. “‘How are you?’ should come out: ‘Ha-ware-ya?’” the website claims. “Don’t separate the syllables into separate beats — slur it all together like natives, ‘Hawareya?’. So from an Irish mouth, you’ll hear far less differentiation between the very distinct ‘o’ sounds of ‘how’ and ‘you’.”

The website even explains the importance of learning the Irish lingo and the meaning of some words including em, cheers, eejit, langer and knacker.

“Clearly, we cannot arm you with all the charming Irish trappings that you will need to pass yourself off as a Hibernian effectively,” it adds. “But these phrases should tide you over until you have a chance to read plenty of Irish poetry, which will disgorge plenty of idioms to you.”

The website points out that many American actors have tried and failed to pull off an Irish accent including Brad Pitt in The Devil’s Own, Val Kilmer in The Ghost and the Darkness, Richard Gere in The Jackal and of course young Tom in Far and Away. Did the producers of those flicks lose their filofaxes? Were the likes of Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan taking a career break?

The website advises enthusiasts to watch films like The Commitments, My Left Foot and Michael Collins (except Julia Roberts).

“Watch these flicks with a tape recorder handy and recite each line in your own attempted Irish accent,” it says. “When you are speaking, focus on the three portions of speech that we have emphasised: soft vowels, hard consonants, and lyrical inflection. Then play the tapes back and listen to your attempts. We are fairly sure you’ll be really lousy at first, but that’s fine — this is a skill like any other and you’ll just have to keep working on it.”