Monday, May 01, 2006

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1. Pid, if you listen to older people on the Leitrim / Fermanagh border there isn’t that much difference in dialect but there’s a huge difference between younger people in the two counties.  Maybe this difference will decrease as the effect of the roads opening up again becomes apparent. 
   
   Keith M, treat yourself to a map - there’s no such thing as the ‘Donegal/Sligo’ boundary.

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 09:37 AM

2. Keith M, treat yourself to a map - there’s no such thing as the ‘Donegal/Sligo’ boundary.

   lol

   Stick up for Leitrim, Tochais Siorai!

   Though I do know what Keith M was (ineptly) trying to say. There is a region of mountains and lakes stretching from Lough Erne across to the Atlantic that would have made communications difficult in the past. The only ‘easy’ route was around Ben Bulbin’s bare head, with only a single crossing point of the Garavogue river between Lough Gill and the sea (now occupied by Sligo town). It was certainly not a natural communication route, and very different to those provided by navigable rivers and lakes elsewhere in the country.

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 10:06 AM

3. Interesting discussion this.

   I’m a relative newcomer to the south Down area and was struck almost immediately by an anomaly. In the Dundalk area the folks have trouble with their th’s (dese and dose etc) but not in the Newry area.

   This has me baffled. As far as I’m aware, they are from the same “stock”. It’s almost as if the border created a different speech pattern, an unlikely scenario.

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 10:21 AM

4. No, David, it’s not unlikely.  In many cases, the communities on each side of the border were completely cut off from each other as the roads were blown up by the British Army in the early period of the troubles. 

   But all the way back to partition, towns have been seperated from their hinterlands and also
   people have tended to socialise on their own side (not much fun getting stopped by the UDR, Specials etc. and more chance of meeting the Guards as well)

   Probably most importantly, students have gone to schools on their own side of the border with a greater chance of their friends being from miles away but on their side of the border than from from a few fields away but in the other state.

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 11:01 AM

5. Tochais Síoraí.

   I absolutely concur with what you say about the younger people having accents which differ more sharply than their grandparents along the border. I hear young people from Ballyconnell, and they speak the greater Dublin lingo which is taking over nearly all the ROI.
   Briain Ó Sé tracked Irish dialects and as expected they change(d) gradually across the country, but more sharply at provincial boundaries. These, in the most case, reflected coincident provincial, county and baronial boundaries, the boundaries of ancient population groups.
   I know this is a long way from centenary money and I hope my point is not lost that NI’s border with Connacht has more legitimacy than it’s border with Ulster counties, and the old Oriel.

   I think it goes to the heart of the NI problem. NI was not designed on the basis of natural division of old territory. This would be just so much history if it were not for the fact that question of NI’s constitutional position, and it’s relationship with the rest of Ireland, remains after 84 years, the only show in town.

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 11:03 AM

6. If you promise to be healthy, and not drink or smoke or do any ultra-skiing so that you have a reasonable chance of living a long life, can you get the 2500 euro in advance :-) ?

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 11:12 AM

7. Tochais Síoraí.

   What you say is about schools makes a lot of sense. I recall a similar situation on the US/Canadian border. All the Canucks had that funny way of pronouncing “out”, whereas the Americans, living only a couple of miles away, did not.

   Posted by  on May 03, 2006 @ 11:16 AM
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