The wonderful Irish accent, how we all love to copy and mimic the world's most loved whimsical and musical brogue. We've all done it, right? It's not just me, is it? We've all given it a go.

Random Irish Accent: I'll be fine with all this oil.
Random Irish Accent: It's quite far, don't you think? Where's Mike?

Random Irish Accent: We don't have to go to work for another year.

No, it's not just me, unfortunately. Do you mind? But despite the popularity of all who would seek to sound more Irish, no one seems to be getting it right. What do you think of this? Quite far, where's the car? Where's Mark? What on earth are you doing?

There is a lot of talk said about the Irish and moreover how to do an Irish accent. Trust me, I've watched a lot of it. So this video was inspired out of sheer frustration towards how supposed accent and dialect coaches are portraying and tackling the how to speak with an Irish accent. A quick caveat, I know I don't have an Irish accent, but all of my family come from Ireland, including my mother, and there are plenty of them spread all across the Emerald Isle. So I do have plenty of references to draw from. Lucky me.

In order to show you how you can learn to do a proper Irish accent, we're going to break this down into seven key stages. Now, you're going to need a pen, paper, computer, and about two months' time. Only joking, you can use your phone instead of a computer. Let's learn the Irish accent properly, but which Irish accent? Which Irish accent will be the first step in our quest? Let's go!

How to do a proper Irish accent, stage one: Be specific. Ireland has loads of accents. There is no single Irish accent. So if you want accuracy, you have to be specific. This means understanding which of the Irish accents you are trying to achieve. If you don't care, then fine, just pick anyone. But be specific. And if you do care, be specific. You must decide which Irish accent you want to learn because if you don't, you might end up sounding a bit like this: 'All right, Darren. All right! What are you doing then?'

'I'm learning how to do an Irish accent, so I was just googling different things and trying to learn what I can.'

'Irish? Do you want any help?'

'No, no, no thanks. It's all right. I'm just gonna do this. My nan used to live in Kilburn when I was growing up. She was next door to this Irish family, so I know the accent, Dan. If you want any help with anything, I'll teach you. I'll show you a bit.'

'The thing is, it's for a job, so I've got to be pretty accurate, and I'm trying to find real-life examples.'

'Look at me! I'm from Ireland. I'll be after your aisle. Would you like to have a painted Dennis in the publican's house? Unbelievable. You're welcome anytime.

I'm both slightly offended and worried for my life at the same time. Don't be that person, be specific.

Did you know there are over 50 million Irish passports around the globe, but only 6 million people living in Ireland? At least 4 million of those people are actually Irish and speak with an Irish accent. But despite the small size of the Emerald Isle, there are distinctly different accents the more you move around. And in case you don't want to end up sounding like ****, 'Would you like to have a painted Guinness?' Then I suggest you pick one to begin with and start with that. Be specific. I think I've made my point now, moving on.

So for the rest of this video and to show you how to create the accent, I'm going to be focusing on the North Dublin accent. Now, even in North Dublin, there are going to be plenty of different accents. But at least this way, we've narrowed it down to one, you know, half of the city. And that's a lot better than just saying 'the Irish accent.' So what we're going to do is work around this area, which brings us to stage two: research and gather resources.

You've made your decision, and now it's time to discover all you can about the accent. Let's look at some key points to consider: cultural and physical context. What can you learn about the location in the world, in the continent, in the country, and in the city itself? What's the economic situation like? What religious beliefs are there? What kind of dance, music, theater, and other cultural things are apparent, common, and popular in that part of the world? Learn about the people. What do they eat, drink, enjoy, talk

about? Can you find podcasts, radio stations, news, weather reports, movies, celebrities, or anything from that area? If you have the possibility, I would say go to the place and hang out for as long as you can and get speaking with natives. But of course, that's not always an option, and Covid just did take that away from the last two years. So, you know, let's not rely on that. You can go online. There's plenty to discover and find. You just have to do your research. Check Wikipedia. It's good. But most importantly, apart from having a good understanding of the historical, geographical, cultural, and all those aspects of a place, you need to find speakers - people who are talking with that accent. You really need to find native people to listen to, because otherwise, you might end up generalizing, 'What on earth are you doing?'

Google's another wonderful way to do that. All I needed to do for this was to type in 'famous people from North Dublin.' Then I got a list. Then I checked a few out, and I chose my three favorites and ones who might be easy to discover lots of material from. For that reason, in the end, I decided to go for three actors: Colin Farrell, Colm Meaney, and Brendan Gleeson. Three fantastic Irish actors who all hail from, guess where? North Dublin. The next thing I needed to do was to just spend time allowing the sounds and the rhythms and the way people delivered words and had conversations just to kind of seep in unconsciously and just wash over me. And now it's time to pick the accent apart, to discover how I can sound similar or the same.

Stage three: quality, tone, and direction. In the 'How to Create 100 Distinctly Different Voices' video I made, which you can find here, I introduced you to something called the Larbon method, which can be used for developing characteristics around different voices. Essentially, the system works in such a way that can help you discover and develop the spatial qualities, the timing, and the weight of the actions or words that you're choosing to use. For example, is the accent spoken in short bursts, short sharp bursts like this? Is it sudden, or is it really sustained and does it carry on down one path and almost just glide along like that? That would be, for example, timing. So you've got short sharp sudden bursts, or you've got sustained sudden or sustained bursts. Next is considered weight, and what you might call heavy or light. So heavy or light. It's another thing to consider. And then for the spatial quality, you might consider something that is completely direct and one way, or just maybe kind of indirect and not necessarily in one direction. And it can flow about and flitter around from side to side like that.

After listening to my resources for a while, podcasts, looking at films, and also some interviews with all the actors...

I noticed that there really are a lot of short, sharp, direct, and mostly indirect, but quite light qualities to the way they speak. And that's something that I found for all three of them. And so, in the Larbon efforts, that is known as flicking or maybe even dabbing, which is a bit more direct. But now, there's a new important aspect, and that's something we could call tone. And by tone, I mean not necessarily in attitude, although it could be that, but something more of a feeling or a place that the vibrations are kind of played with. Something that's enjoyed within the accent, something that you can hear happening.

What I would say is that, what I've noticed is that there's a lot of attention in the nasopharynx, which is basically the area at the back of the nose where it meets the oropharynx, which is the kind of mouth cavity. So there's a bit where it switches round, so it's seeping into the nose a bit. And there's this tendency to enjoy that area and use the tonalities from that place. So the way you can find this is by just saying the word 'sing,' and the end part, the 'sing,' you can feel the vibrations going into this area and the nose. But now, what's going to happen is you can't continue to do that because this is being closed off by your tongue. And when you take your tongue away, it just makes an 'ah' sound. But you want to keep the idea of that area alive. So if you just say 'sing,' try and keep some energy going there. You're not really sending too much air through there because that's the next thing we're going to look at.

And what that is, air placement. And what I've discovered from listening to this accent is that there are, there seems to be quite breathy, and it seems that breath seems to slide across the top of the mouth, just across the hard palate there, and seeps through the teeth. So there's a nasal quality, 'nasality,' of the air. There's a way that the air just moves through there like that. And it's a bit flaky, a bit dabby. And so it's light and thrown away. And I haven't gotten into the actual accent yet. This is just like specifics and nuances that will really help you get to the right place.

So all I'm doing here is just really sending the air across the roof of my mouth and out through my teeth. And I'm also paying attention to keeping some energy up there in my nose. And at the same time, adding in the bits we've not yet done, but we'll go through those now.

Yeah, and like I said, keep in mind the breathiness. So, you want to let a little bit more air escape than is necessary. So, I have quite a glottal-y accent, which means I stop and start. My vocal onset is very do-do-dabby, if you like. And what happens is the glottal stops and allows the vocal folds to close together and allow air to jump out like

this. But it seems like with the accent, this accent I've been listening to, there's a lot of breathy onset. So, the air seems to seep out just before and just after the words.

So, let's get a line. It doesn't really matter. This is not the final piece, but just to put it together for you. 'I like to ride my bike.' A lot of people might say, 'I like to ride my bike.' But I would go a bit further and add a bit more breath in there, 'I like to ride my bike,' 'I like to ride my bike.' Ah, so you've got the nasally thing going on there, but the air is escaping through the top of the mouth and out through the teeth. And so, you have a little onset that's quite breathy before and after you're speaking. Now, this is not perfect yet. I understand that. But this is just trying to build on it as we go.

Just to recap, the story so far is you've recognized a specific accent within the country that you're looking for. We've chosen North Dublin. I've researched and found resources that will help in my understanding and educate me not only in the accent but also cultural elements of the place. I've chosen three specific different people that I can find lots of material from to listen to and analyze. I've discovered that it's kind of a dabby, flicky accent with quite a lot of breathy onset, a tendency to hold sound in the nose and send air across the roof of the mouth and spilling out through the teeth.

So now it's on to the next thing, Stage Four: T, TH, and D sounds. Common mistakes in this accent, or rather when people say an Irish accent, is that they say 'dose' instead of 'those,' 'demb' instead of 'them.' And they also make the mistake of pronouncing 'think,' 'through,' and 'thoroughly' as 'tink,' 'true,' and 'thoroughly.' But with the North Dublin accent, it's more like they're pronouncing the 't' but actually having a short, aspirated 'h' sound after it. Which in phonetics looks like this [example], but sounds like [example]. So, it's quite a lot of air in there.

So, these, those, them, think, through, thoroughly becomes 'dose, doze, dem, tink, true, thoroughly.' Notice it's not so hard, and it's not a 'd' sound either. And if we keep in mind that nasal quality as well as having the air just gliding across the roof of our mouth and spilling out through our teeth, as well as the dabby and kind of flaky quality, then we might sound a bit more, well, more Irish, I hope. Let's give it a go.

'Dose, doze, dem, tink, true, thoroughly.' Now I'm over articulating it a bit, but what you want to do is start there, you know, go a bit further, and then slowly break it down. It's better to go too far and 'dose, doze, dem' and then pull it back, 'dose, doze, dem.' And eventually, you'll get it to a place where it's kind of subtle enough after practice.

But what about words that end in a 't' or even a 'k,' for that matter? 'Start,' 'heart,' 'that,' 'fat.' 'Start,' 'heart,' 'that,' 'fat.' You see, it's like, you know that, you know, the 't' is there,

but it's kind of more aspirated. So, it's more 'that' than just 'that.' You're just about to pronounce the 't,' but it kind of drops off into air. It's almost the same with the 'k' as well. So, rather than 'stark,' 'heart,' it's 'stahrk,' 'hahrt.' Right, it's not so tinny. Can, in my accent, it's that, you know, in English pronunciations, you know, when they've really clipped, they can have that really hard 't.' But it's much more breathy, it's much lighter, and it just kind of lets a bit of air escape. 'Bought,' 'start,' 'heart,' 'fat.' So, rather than pronouncing the full 't,' you go to pronounce the 't,' but then let air come through instead.

So, the biggest takeaway from this point is just pay attention to the end of words and where you can just allow air to take over, rather than really properly pronouncing the end of word letter. Moving on... Stage Five: 'R's' and linking words in a sentence. The whole of Dublin, and especially North Dublin, uses what's known as a rhotic 'r.' It's a rhotic accent. This means that people pronounce the 'r's when they're there in a sentence and they don't when they're not. It sounds pretty simple, and I guess it is really, but for people like myself from East London, Essex, and many other parts of the world whose accent is not rhotic, you will find that this is a really common place that you will trip up and show that you're not a native. So, this is one thing to check for. It's a dead giveaway.

So, to pronounce your 'r's for those who are non-rhotic speakers, a way you can do this quite simply is just to curl your tongue a little bit. So, as you say 'r,' you can pull the tongue back and just curl it up like that. And that's one way that you might make your 'r's differently. But if you listen to the Irish 'r,' it's kind of rounded. It's like a big movement there. So, perhaps this is my tongue sitting at the bottom of my mouth. I say 'r,' try it!

But now, just to show you the difference between a rhotic and a non-rhotic accent. Mine's non-rhotic. So, I would say, 'The water under the bridge was running rapidly.' The water under the bridge was running rapidly. So, the beginning 'r's are kind of they're running, running, but they're not over-emphasized. But at the end of 'water' and 'under,' I don't say 'our water under,' whereas in the North Dublin accent, you would say all of the 'r's. So, you'd have, 'The water under the bridge was running rapidly.' The water under the bridge was running rapidly.

And I guess that's simple enough, but where it becomes difficult is where 'r's aren't in the sentence, but someone like me who's a non-rhotic speaker adds an 'r' in. But rhotic accents, unless they're written down, they're not there. I'll give you an example. 'Linda and I.' I would say, 'Linda and I.' 'Linda and I.' I add an 'r' in to link them, so 'linda-r-an-eye.' That's how I say it. Another one is 'law and justice.' 'Law and justice.' 'Law and justice.' 'Law and justice.' 'Law and,' 'law and justice.' So, you know, it's in my

accent to add the 'r' in. But in Irish, and specifically in Dublin and Northern Dublin, you'd say all of the 'r's. So, you'd say 'Linda and I,' or if you wanted to link them, you wouldn't add the 'r.' You'd say it differently. 'Linda and I,' 'linda-ni.'

But what's very true about this accent is that words do glide together a lot in a sentence. In the North Dublin accent, that's really crucial, that you're able to glide words seamlessly together without adding in 'r's where they're not present. And that's something really crucial to keep in mind when you're working on this accent. Stage Six: Monophthongs, Diphthongs, and Triphthongs, or rather how vowels sound in speech. The vowels 'a,' 'e,' 'i,' 'o,' and 'u,' which are common in the English alphabet, can be pronounced in many, many ways.

I've called this diphthongs, monophthongs, and triphthongs because basically, a monophthong is a vowel sound that just has one phonetic sound in it. A diphthong has two, and a triphthong has three. So, for example, in my accent, I'd say 'a,' and that's got two. That's a diphthong. So, 'a' is one sound, 'e' is another sound, 'a-e,' 'a.' So, even though it's one letter 'a,' it's two kinds of phonetic vowel sounds put together. 'A-e.' 'E' is a monophthong. It's just one 'e.' 'I,' that's a diphthong. 'O,' that's a diphthong. 'U,' 'u.'

But if we said this in a North Dublin accent, it's very different. And rather than just going through the vowels, let's put it in a sentence. 'I like to ride my bike' would be, you know, in North Dublin, 'I like to ride my bike.' Again, remember that 'k' at the end. I'm just aspirating it the same as the 't's. 'I like to ride my bike.' And if I say, 'The nurse had a likely reason to get a head start,' in North Dublin, you might say, 'The nurse had a likely reason to get a head start.' You might have your own way to understand the vowels that you hear.

But what I would say, what I would suggest, is that phonetics offers a very clear and definite approach to the sounds that are actually being made, as opposed to your interpretation of what other words might recreate that. And the reason this is because it's universal.

For example, in all three of the videos on how to do an Irish accent, they've said that the 'i' sound should be said like the 'oi' in 'oil.' 'I'll be fine with all this oil.' But the trouble is that it only works in a couple of accents. If I said that in my accent, because my accent is more East London, I'd say 'oi' as in 'oil,' 'oil.' Now, if I put that 'oi' into the Irish accent, I'd say, 'I like to ride my boik.' I sound like a super **** instead of an Irishman. 'All right, mate, so it's all stacked up over here. Are you sure you can be okay taking all this oil?'

'I'll be fine with all this oil.' 'Great! Let me just tell you, be careful with it, because this Madeline Harvey's about, and she's been stealing from people.'

'Oh no, look out, mate, here she comes.' 'You'll be having some of that oil.' 'No hell now, brown cow.' 'Careful, mate! Don't upset her.' 'When do you start school?' 'Who's this? You know me?' 'Where's Mike? I've not seen him anywhere.' 'I know, I met him in the road a short time ago. Actually, I think he was off on his holidays, and he's gone to Spain.' 'It's quite far, don't you think?' 'Yeah, sure.' 'Where's Mike?' 'I've just told you, he's gone on holiday.' 'What do you think of this?' 'Idiot.' 'I'll be having some of that oil.' 'She's persistent, mate. I think you better at least share a bit with her, because she's gonna get angry.' 'We'll be having some of that oil!' 'All right, Madeline, just calm down, all right? It's his oil, he's paid for it, he's gonna... and that'll be the end of it.' 'Look, can't you just, just for once, just leave!' 'And of a discussion!' 'Ah, sorry, mate. She's gonna have to have some of that.'

'Where's Mike?' '*** off!' And last but not least of all, Stage Seven: Practice often and with purpose. Dialect and accent coaches will often use scripts to get people to record their voice so they can listen to it, break it down, and analyze it in more detail. A fantastic and popular script that is often used for these types of breakdowns is called "Comma gets a cure." This text was written and is copyright owned by Douglas N. Honnoroff, Jill McCullough, and Barbara Somerville. So, I won't be reading it to you, but if you have a look in my description box below, there is a link where you can find a website where you can get hold of that script.

But also, there is a whole library of different accents speaking this particular script, and you can find North Dublin there. You can actually find all parts of Ireland on that website, so it's a really, really good resource to check out. Now, the script itself was put together using specific words, which were put down by someone called J.C. Wells in what's known as lexical sets. Lexical sets are like groups of words that have similar-sounding phonemes within them that help you to, they kind of cover all the phonemes necessary in order to work on an accent.

So, once you find one word, you can find where it is in the lexical set and then kind of understand that all those other words will sound the same when spoken. And so, these are really powerful tools. Again, you will find these on the same website, and I will have a link in the description box below. And so, with this text, you can go through the words that are the lexical set main keywords and then find one of those words in that group from your resources and check it against them, and then work on all of those sounds at a time until you get all of those words right.

And this is the practice part. Practice makes perfect. You need to just drill it in, but keep in mind everything we've done so far. Keep in mind that it's a rhotic accent, all 'r's are pronounced if they're there, they're not if they're not. You've got a tonality which is really up in the nose. The air placement is kind of flowing across the hard palate, slipping out through the front teeth. It's kind of like words gliding together in sentences. You want to make sure that it's kind of a breathy onset you're using.

All of these things are going to add up and count. So when you get to these things like lexical sets and practice along with them and scripts, it will come together.

Before I go ahead and show you examples of what I've learned and how I've put the accent together fully, I will just say that if you go to the link below to my website at vocabilities.com, there is a resource page where you can find the transcript of today's video and a list of everything in order, like a checklist that you can use. Also, there will be links to the website where you can find the resources, as well as the lexical sets. Reup, reup, right, like, knife, home, town, sow, now, like, I don't care, share, bear, poor, a sort, jerk, reap, meat, speak, teach, leaf, brass, glass, class, grass, star, bar, bizarre, sharp, stop, pot, sock, notch, goth, face, tape, late, cake, safe, case. And once you've gone through those lexical sets and those words, you should hopefully have a better understanding of when you come across those certain sounds and you're going to make mistakes.

Look, I'm going to read it. I'm not going to read the whole lot because this video is already nearly half an hour long, but I'm going to read the first paragraph, and I'm going to do this to the best of my ability with what I've practiced in the North Dublin accent. Now, not making excuses, but I've been working on this a few days in between over a couple of weeks. If you want to master it, I'd suggest doing work every day consistently for a couple of months, so that way it becomes automated and you can speak quite naturally and improvise in the accent. But I'm not quite there yet, so what I'm going to do is do my best just to read through this and give you an example of all the things that we've put together through this video to see how it could sound.

Well, here's a story for you: "Irish Accent" Sarah Perry was a veterinary nurse "Irish Accent" who had been working daily at an old zoo in a deserted district of the territory, so she was "Irish Accent" very happy to start a new job at a superb private practice in North Square near the Duke Street "Irish Accent" Tower. That area was much nearer for her and more to her liking. Even so, on her first morning, she "Irish Accent" felt stressed. She ate a bowl of porridge, checked herself in the mirror, and washed her face in a "Irish Accent" hurry. Then she put on a plain yellow dress and a fleece jacket, picked up her kit, and headed for work.

All right, so that's my take on "Comma gets a cure," the first paragraph at least, after dipping my toe into the accent for a couple of weeks. If I was to go on this every day for a month or two, I'd be more than happy to improvise. And one thing I didn't mention already is that once you do find certain sounds that work for you, it's nice to have like a key in, like a buzzword, a line that will help you just embody the accent again. So for me, I think like a line, I don't know where I got it from, but like, you know, just makes me feel like I can get into the accent a little bit easier like that. So that's what I use. You might want to find something else, but yeah.

So, I'm gonna work on it a bit more, come back with a shorter video next month, and just see what I've done after staying consistent with it for a month. And like this is after a couple of weeks. Another four weeks from now, we'll see how that's progressed. And then if I can do it, then, you know, this is the way to do it. So that was how to do an Irish accent properly, or you know, more specifically North Dublin. If you like it, of course, give me a thumbs up. If you love it, share it with a friend. Leave a comment, say hi, got any ideas, anything you want to learn, anything you'd like to pick me up on in this video, I'm all ears and I'm willing to respond, so it's good to hear from you.

Of course, you can subscribe if you haven't already and hit the notifications bell so you get all the information about when I'm posting next and I'll be badgering you for more. And then again, if you want to learn and go a bit further with your voice, I do have my eight-week online course, which is perfect for those people who are taking themselves on a journey to better their vocal instrument and be able to use it with more dexterity, with more clarity and articulation, with more resonance. And again, you can find links to that on my website.

Thank you so much for watching. I am Darren McStay. This is “Improve Your Voice”, and until the next time, look after your voice.