“You came back with the accent,” say the Uber drivers, old friends and distant relatives. It’s been a constant chorus since I landed back in Australia from Ireland. “Naaaahhhhhhhhhhh,” I respond in my distinctly Australian nasal tones that make it sound like a sentient crow is answering back instead of a human woman. Because I don’t have an Irish accent. I can’t even put on an Irish accent if I try despite hearing it my entire life.
My accent is so removed from an Irish one that I could have been employed as Julia Roberts’s dialect coach on the movie Michael Collins. It has none of the mellifluous tonal shifts and playful rhythms. It is a flat Strine (that’s “Australian”, if you say it in our accent). As dry and dull as a drought-stricken back paddock.
Was I going crazy? Or were people just looking at my newfound, suspicious European ways, like eating proper butter instead of margarine, and looking to bring me down a few pegs? It was my partner who put two and two together. “You don’t sound Irish because of your accent, it’s because of the phrases you’re still using,” he said.
Once I noticed it, I clung to the precious specimens of Hiberno-English I had collected subconsciously from living in Ireland. Instead of scrubbing them from my daily dialect, I’m growing fearful and paranoid that they’re leaking out of my brain every time I put my head down to sleep at night. Hiberno-English just does so many things that standard English can’t.
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For instance, why say “that was a group of unconscionable people” when you can say “what an absolute shower of ba***rds”? Not a pack, a shower. That means, coming in from all sides. Living in Ireland means you’re blessed with daily poetry in the most mundane of interactions. There are phrases from people that I’ve overheard on a bus that were seared in my brain, while I forgot the birthdays of family members.
To my great shame, I can’t speak Irish fluently, but I love how it stubbornly shows up in the English language. Like ‘I have a thirst or a hunger on me’
Like “he’d ride himself if he could turn around fast enough” – it scratches an itch and paints a picture that “he’s a bit conceited” could only ever dream of achieving. I love the unquantifiable measure of a “rake”. I love how you instinctively know what a rake of pints is, and the likely outcome of it all.
Best of all, these skills enable the great Irish ability to say so little with a lot of words. I’ve been at 40-minute meetings of non-stop talking in Ireland, but couldn’t tell you what was the end result, or what was going to change. There’s a knack to keeping the words coming without having to give a definite answer that might hold you to some sort of commitment.
[ That doesn’t work for me actually’. Unapologetically saying ‘no’ is mesmerisingOpens in new window ]
[ I’m leaving Ireland. I don’t have the energy for life hereOpens in new window ]
Nothing wraps up a discussion like “sure you know yourself”, even if the person does indeed not know themselves. It’s a graceful dismount out of a chat. I have a particular grá for “Sure look, sure listen”, which is the tried and tested conversational utility tool for when you don’t know what to say in return to the thing someone just told you. A dear and wise friend told me it works in any situation.
Someone going into details about their painful separation? Just had a colleague bitch about a boss, but you can’t trust them not to take any answer you give straight to the senior in question? A cab driver telling you about the Great Replacement race theory, but it’s a 90-minute ride and you have to get to the airport? Just hit them with the “Sure look, you know yourself ...” and trail off into nothingness. They feel heard. You’ve escaped.
To my great shame, I can’t speak Irish fluently, but I love how it stubbornly shows up in the English language. Like “I have a thirst or a hunger on me.” I am told this reflects how feelings are expressed in Irish. You are not sad, rather sadness is “on” you. As someone who experiences bouts of depression, it is comforting to know that I am not an emotion and that emotion, sadness, is not part of me, but rather something I am sitting under temporarily – something that is not permanent and will shift when the right wind comes to carry it off.
So I will fiercely guard my precious bits of Hiberno-English. I will keep saying “yer man” instead of Australia’s “old mate”. I won’t make a call. I’ll always be “just after getting off the phone” with someone. I will keep adding the suffix “-een” on to small things. “Don’t mind them,” I’ll say when people try to correct me or ask what I mean. Maybe it will catch on, like the way my mother’s bank colleagues from all walks of life used the word eejit after she’d worked there so long.
What you have in Ireland is beautiful and should never be taken for granted.