English As We Speak It in Ireland

by P. W. Joyce

And she won the heart of the prentice bye.'

(Old Irish Folk Song.)

The old English pronunciation of oblige was obleege:—

'Dreaded by fools, by flatterers besieged,

And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.'

(Pope.)

Among the old-fashioned and better-educated of our peasantry you will still hear this old pronunciation preserved:—I am very much obleeged to you. It is now generally heard in Kildare among all classes. A similar tendency is in the sound of whine, which in Munster is always made wheen: 'What's that poor child wheening for?' also everywhere heard:—'All danger [of the fever] is now past: he is over his creesis.'

Metathesis, or the changing of the place of a letter or syllable in a word, is very common among the Irish people, as cruds for curds, girn for grin, purty for pretty. I heard a man quoting from Shakespeare about Puck—from hearsay: he said he must have been a wonderful fellow, for he could put a griddle round about the earth in forty minutes.' I knew a fellow that could never say traveller: it was always throlliver.

There is a tendency here as elsewhere to shorten many words: You will hear garner for gardener, ornary for ordinary. The late Cardinal Cullen was always spoken of by a friend of mine who revered him, as The Carnal.