An Irish low self-esteem?

The historical rather dismissive attitude of the British colonizers towards the Irish and their accent is one the reasons why Irish English variety remains unique in its own, as an attempt to distinguish oneself from the conquerors. Hickey R. talks about some non-linguistic terms referring to Irish English, first raised to show the incorrectness of the Irish people when speaking English. These terms have negative connotations that have been perpetuated throughout history. One of the best examples is the term “brogue”, first mentioned by John Skelton in Speke, Parrot, where a parrot imitates different languages and dialects, including Irish. B.H. Smart made his own comments on it in the early 19^th, where he gives some advice to achieve a proper Standard English accent:

“Hints for softening a Hibernian Brogue 

The first point our Western friend must attend to for this purpose is to avoid hurling out his words with a superfluous quantity of breath. It is not “broadher” and “loudher” that he must say, but the ‘d’ and every other consonant in the language must be neatly delivered by the tongue, with as little riot, cluttering or breathing as possible”

Similarly, from the end of the 16^th century and later on, the image of the “Irishman” in literature has been depicted as ridiculous and laughable. One of the numerous examples of this fact is the anonymous play The Life and Death of Captain Stukeley (1596/1605). It is fair to say, however, that the inferior/primitive relationship held by the colonized and the colonizers was the norm and what was expected at that time.

Another historical reason for Irish English uniqueness might be due to the fact that English gained prominence in Ireland in the second half of the 19^th century. In this sense, the adaptation of the Gaelic cultural history to the “English system” might be regarded as still not fully completed. As a consequence, in the Irish collective consciousness, the standard British accent has an immediate connection with those colonizers still nowadays. Therefore, even those Irish whose accent is relatively close to RP are classified as “un-Irish”, “traitors” or “West Brit” (a rather derogatory term in the Irish context).

Another element to consider is the absence of a supraregional modality of English in the Republic of Ireland. In contrast with official names such as Cockney, Scouse, Geordi, Estatuary, etc., Irish English variety lacks of a specific name for their own standard of English. This seems to be another consequence derived from the dismissive attitude of the British towards the Irish-speaking populations. From a psychological point of view, this has affected the Irish self-esteem so much that even nowadays there is still a great scarcity of linguistic awareness of their form of English.

         Nevertheless, Dublin variety is considered to be the most prestigious linguistic norm today in Ireland, and it is gradually spreading throughout the rest of the country with great popularity, especially among the young generations. This is common to many other nations, where the economic center ends up becoming the norm for the whole country. It is important to remember that Dublin suffered a great economic boom during the 1990s, which made it easy for the city to become the model for the whole country.