The Gift of the Gab

Over the years, some of Hollywood's finest have been called upon to affect an Irish accent in the course of their career. Some have spoken as if they had kissed, nay embraced, the Blarney Stone; others sound as if it had been dropped on their foot.

Of course, Ireland is not the only nation in the British Isles to suffer linguistic oppression! While we may marvel at Gwyneth Paltrow (though I can't shake the suspicion that she is copying Emma Thompson vowel for vowel) and Cate Blanchett and their faultless English accent, cast your mind back to Dick Van Dyke and his 'Cockney' accent in Mary Poppins. Simply dreadful!! And James Doohan's (Star Trek's Scotty) Scottish accent was the one that launched a thousand dodgy imitators.

However, back to the Emerald Isle. We take a look at a few would-be Irishmen and women, and rate their linguistic performance only. By an eerie coincidence, it often matches their acting performance ....

Actor	Movie	But is it art ?	Verdict (out of ***)
John Wayne	The Quiet Man	The mother of all 'Oirish' movies, Wayne brings the same sense of realism to his role as an Irish boxer returned from America as he did as a centurion in The Greatest Story Ever Told (i.e. absolutely none). The film works best as a bit of whimsy, but the dialogue is beginning to creak a bit.	**
Daniel Day-Lewis	My Left Foot	This man would have my admiration for the fact he dated Isabelle Adjani (sigh), but I digress. Managing to combine a flawless Dublin accent with the speech impairment associated with cerebral palsy, Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his portrayal of Dublin writer Christy Brown.	*****
Brad Pitt	Devil's Own	Pitt turns in a surprisingly good Northern Irish accent as a young IRA terrorist in this entertaining, if politically dubious, thriller.	****
Mickey Rourke	A Prayer for the Dying	Most people watching this film were praying for the demise of Rourke's lamentable accent. His performance, as a guilt-racked terrorist, should have been decommissioned, too.	*
Tom Cruise	Far and Away	The suffering of the Irish peasants in the movie was nothing compared to the suffering of the audience listening to Tom's brogue. Star-vehicle for Cruise and real-life wife Nicole Kidman (who manages a far better accent) , the film suffers from an inane plot, though it is very pretty to watch.	**
Julia Roberts	Michael Collins	Julia acquits herself well as the girlfriend of Michael Collins, Kitty Kiernan. Anoraks may notice that Julia affects a Wicklow accent, even though Kitty is supposed to be from Longford. Those people should get out more often. Julia undid her good work with a far less convincing accent in Mary Reilly. It can't have helped that she probably realised that she was trapped in a sure-fire clunker from the outset.	***
Alan Rickman	Michael Collins	Every person in Ireland knows of founding father Eamonn De Valera. Englishman Alan Rickman arrived in Ireland to find that his first scene in the movie was to deliver a blood-curdling speech in front of a thousand Irish extras. He did it, magnificently.	****
Mia Farrow	Widow's Peak	It's hard to believe that this absolute nadir of stage-Oirish rubbish was written by Irish playwright Hugh Leonard (Da). Chief offender has to be Mia Farrow, whose accent (and general performance) is less believable (and far less entertaining) than her mother's performance in The Quiet Man (no gritty slice of realism, itself)	*
Rod Steiger	Hennessy	Rod Steiger is as wooden as a totem pole (with an accent to match) as an Irish man whose family are accidently killed by the British army during 'the Troubles' and decided to blow up the Queen in revenge. Steiger managed to sink lower in the accents league with his woeful Colombian accent in The Specialist (and this was a movie with Eric Roberts, Stallone and Sharon Stone - only a world class turkey could stand out in such stellar company!).	*
Sean Connery	Darby O'GIll and the Little People	It's a toss-up which is worse; Connery's accent or his singing.	*

Honourable mention also goes to Ned Beatty in Hear My Song; dishonourable discharge goes to Val Kilmer for The Ghost and the Darkness. Val would go on to demonstrate his equal ineptness in many other accents in The Saint.

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