P W Joyce

English As We Speak It in Ireland P W Joyce

Book Excerpt: ... Coiner, ' 'Tales of a Jury-room, ' &c.) than any other writer; and very near him come Charles Kickham (in 'Knocknagow'), Crofton Croker (in 'Fairy Legends') and Edward Walsh. These four writers almost exhaust the dialect of the South of Ireland. On the other hand Carleton gives us the Northern dialect very fully, especially that of Tyrone and eastern Ulster; but he has very little idiom, the peculiarities he has preserved being chiefly in vocabulary and pronunciation. Mr. Seumas MacManus has in his books faithfully pictured the dialect of Donegal (of which he is a native) and of all north-west Ulster. In the importation of Irish idiom into English, Irish writers of the present day are also making their influence felt, for I often come across a startling Irish expression (in English words of course) in some English magazine article, obviously written by one of my fellow-countrymen. Here I ought to remark that they do this with discretion and common sense, for they always make sure that.