Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/117

 102 in Spenser's Faerie Queene. We accent character on the second syllable:—


 * 'Said he in a whisper to my benefactor,
 * Though good your charac´ter has been of that lad.'
 * (Song by Mr. Patrick Murray of Kilfinane,
 * a schoolmaster of great ability: about 1840).

One of my school companions once wrote an ode in praise of Algebra, of which unfortunately I remember only the opening line: but this fragment shows how we pronounced the word in our old schools in the days of yore:—


 * 'Hail sweet al-jib´era, you're my heart's delight.'

There is an Irish ballad about the people of Tipperary that I cannot lay my hands on, which speaks of the


 * 'Tipperary boys,
 * Although we are cross and contrairy boys';

and this word 'contrairy' is universal in Munster.

In Tipperary the vowel i is generally sounded oi. Mick Hogan a Tipperary boy—he was a man indeed—was a pupil in Mr. Condon's school in Mitchelstown, with the full rich typical accent. One morning as he walked in, a fellow pupil, Tom Burke—a big fellow too—with face down on desk over a book, said, without lifting his head—to make fun of him—‘foine day, Mick.’ ‘Yes,’ said Mick as he walked past, at the same time laying his hand on Tom's poll and punching his nose down hard against the desk. Tom let Mick alone after that ‘foine day.’ Farther south, and in many places all over Ireland, they do the reverse:—‘The kettle is biling’;


 * 'She smiled on me like the morning sky,
 * And she won the heart of the prentice bye.'
 * (Old Irish Folk Song.)