RTÉ too quick to drop ‘o’ vowel

I read with interest the piece by Caroline Delaney on Dec 3 about accents. It has grated on my ear for a long time now how the vowel ‘o’ has disappeared from certain ways of speaking in Ireland, especially on RTÉ.

We no longer have “phones”, we have phownes (the ow as in “how”). The “coast” has disappeared and it is now the “cowst”. When a genuine “ou” as in “ow” sound makes an appearance — that is now also changed as in “canty” for “county”. I heard: “Many vow-ters didn’t now what the pro-pow-sels entiled” . “Some siy that the propow-sels are ow-pen to neg-ow-ciy-ai-tion. We hear that, “the pro-pow-sals for the rowds in Canty Curk to-die are not wolcome”. Some of the remarks made were considered “ina-prow-priate”. We hear that “vowters were slou to the powls due to early morning s-now. Many elderly vow ters stayed at how-m”. Miriam O’Callaghan “Wolcomes” participants to her “Prow gram”.

It is great to hear Bill O’Herlhy, Michael Clifford, Vincent Browne, Dáithí O’Shea, Ciarán Mullooly et al, not foolishly aping some accent from, as Michael Clifford puts it in his novel, Ghost Town, “somewhere between here and North Australia”.