r/IrishHistory • u/Dependent-Term-7573 • 1d ago
š¬ Discussion / Question Why don't all Ulster Protestant communities have Scottish accents?
Why is it only parts of County Antrim who have this accent? Towns like Ballymena, Ballymoney and the north coast.
Belfast doesn't have this accent nor do the Protestant communities anywhere else like Portadown, Dungannon and Cookstown.
My assumption is that an accent like Belfast had more of an influence from northern English people. The influence of Ulster Irish should also be mentioned but I don't know how much that would have influenced an accent like Belfast. I assume the accents west of Lough Neagh had more influence from Ulster Irish.
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u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 1d ago
Accents change over time - Scottish and Irish accents from the 17th century wouldn't sound the same as Scottish and Irish accents today.Ā
The modern "Ulster" accents are likely the result of a fusion of pre-plantation Irish accents and plantation era Lowland Scots and Northern English accents (+400 years of subsequent independent development).
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u/ElectronicCarry9931 1d ago
People from England in 17th century would not sound like english. people today either
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u/Spinthar 1d ago edited 1d ago
The city is Mid Ulster English driven, rather than Ulster Scots, but it did get English input, mainly through the Lagan Valley and Lisburn, where English settlement was heavier. Its modern accent was also shaped by people moving in from all over rural Ulster during industrialisation.
You also get more than a bit of a middle class urban bubble of arts, culture, academic, administrative and business types, schools etc who would have aimed at a general prestige accent anyway, something you don't really get to the same extent in rural areas. What might be defined as prestige has also shifted over time, and has probably shifted from being very focused on prim and proper RP tones to something a lot more modern neutral Northern Irish, often with a twinge almost mid Atlantic over the decades. That applies to other Irish cities too, just with different base accents. So it's an urban mix rather than a direct northern English import.
The other aspect is that NI and other Irish representation in media became more mainstream both in NI with the growth of UTV, BBC NI, various radio stations etc, and other Irish media from across the border, but also stronger representation in British media eg the likes of Gloria Honeyford etc having a NI accent that is highly regarded as warm and āprestigeā has probably done a lot to strengthen the self image of the accent and pushed that bubble away from feigning BBC RP, which to be fair to BBC NI isnāt really something they ever did. Always thought the two local tv stations in Belfast were very much embedded in NI with none of that fake RP stuff.
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u/Ros_Dearg_1916 1d ago
Having lived in both Scotland and the North of Ireland I will simply say that nobody in the North has a Scottish accent.
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u/Plus-Tax9128 1d ago
Scottish accents vary hugely and there isnāt a massive difference between some accents here and some across the water.
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u/Away-Morning4621 1d ago
Beg to differ. Scottish accents are uniquely and obviously Scottish, whereas Northern Irish accents are quite distinct from the Scottish accent and are uniquely and obviously Northern Irish. One could never think that they were the one and the same.
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u/toastymctoast 1d ago
This is absolute baws. Listen to someone from ayrshire, the sound a lot closer to someone from the the glens than they do to a Teuchter.
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u/Away-Morning4621 1d ago
You need to go to Specsavers, they're doing hearing tests and hearing aids on the cheap. Best of luck !
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u/Plus-Tax9128 1d ago
Aye, the Crossmaglen accent and the Ballymoney accent are clearly indistinguishable.
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u/surfinbear1990 1d ago
Why don't Scottish Catholics have Irish accents.
This might go down as a lead balloon. You can be both Protestant and Irish ya know
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u/rankinrez 1d ago
Why do Americans not sound German or Italian?
Maybe weāve mingled a bit less on this island in the past 400 years but weāve still done it a bit.
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u/Repulsive_Isopod7982 1d ago
To Sottish people no one from Ulster has a Scottish accent, they all have Irish accents.
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u/Melodic-Sympathy-380 1d ago
The migration was both ways. Itās just as fair to ask why Scottish people found like people from the north of the island.
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u/Danny_Mc_71 1d ago
In some parts of Ulster, including Donegal, you can hear a hint of Scottish in people's accents.
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u/smallon12 1d ago
I always wondered what was reasoning behind their pronunciation of a "K" instead of a silent "G" for instance "GervacKy" road, where as nationalist pronounce it "GervaHy"
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u/Plus-Tax9128 1d ago
Same with Maghera or āMacker-ahā.
Moira is sometimes pronounced āMaraā. Maybe something to do with the original Irish which is Maigh Rath.
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u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 1d ago
A lack of knowledge as to Irish pronunciation rules likely, they're pronouncing an Irish originated placename using English phonetics.
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u/askmac 16h ago
A lack of knowledge as to Irish pronunciation rules likely, they're pronouncing an Irish originated placename using English phonetics.
At some point that was probably the case and still is for some. But there's also a cohort who will just insist on avoiding anything too Irish.
It sounds completely nuts but even when shown evidence, like in the case of Maghera, Magherafelt etc and how it's not pronounced Mackara, they'll ignore it. The fact there are dozens of Maghera's around Ireland, all with the same pronunciation is largely irrelevant.
The closest thing I can liken it to is Derry / Londonderry which obviously isn't a direct comparison, but there's the same aspect of "we say it this way, so this is the correct way to say it".
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u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 16h ago
Of course there is an element of that, yes.Ā
To be fair to them though, even the Fenians can't agree how to pronounce Magherafelt (ma-her-a-felt or Ma-ra-felt). I'm led to believe the latter is actually a closer approximation of the original local Irish pronunciation but who knows.
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u/Different_Counter113 1d ago
Its complicated. Some Ulster protestants actually have Gaelic lineage, as can be seen in their names, such as Sullivan, Flanagan, etc. So they chose an alligience at some point in their family history. Not all of them are Scottish planters... Same is true of lots of Catholic Nationalists too, some of them actually have Scottish planter names such as Murray and Beatty. History is a complex tapestry that doesn't work well with black and white statements. The accents would probably be hybridised by centuries of cohabitation.