Why do English people think it's okay to do "comedy" Irish accents?

Seriously does anyone know?

I don't mean a friend or someone who knows me (though that can be odd) but someone you've just met and they're doing that weird jockey voice within 30 seconds. Is there any reason why this should be okay? It's happened me 3 times in the last 2-3 weeks, on one occasion I was in a (v small) pub in Soho and my friend who's also Irish was at the bar a few feet away from our table and we continued the conversation. I heard this guy at the next table say what he had said in that weird Jim Davidson "let me do your driveway sur" voice. I was really incensed and felt like saying something but just stared at him to let him know I'd heard, and they left a minute later. He seemed a pretty normal inoffensive dude too, shirt and tie etc.

What is the deal with this? Nobody would meet a Pakistani person and mimic their voice would they? I know it's a while since Irish were really discriminated against but I still consider this pretty reprehensible.

They do?

wtf would you know

Top 'o the mornin' to ya!

Places I have had this

-With friends
-At work in BBC
-Training with BBC
-Randomly meeting someone in a club.

We're not talking some "fuck off paddy" stuff from a skinhead just a general sense that doing an "Irish voice" is okay and a bit of a laugh, from anyone.

the only time i've ever heard english people do irish accents is with quoting father ted, or irish man jokes (but i've not heard any of those for many a year)

maybe should change title to "why do English people think it's okay to do 'comedy' Irish accents when they meet an Irish person?"

I suppose naive people (or young people) might not realise the baggage it carries, and might assume it's no different from doing a Newcastle or Scouse accent or whatever. Doing anyone's accent to their face is a pretty stupid thing to do anyway.

yeah that's awful. has alan partridge taught us nothing?

my scottish accent is better than my irish accent - which is quite ridiculous given my heritage.

x-post Yeah I guess that's a part of it. It's not even like I consider it massively offensive, just kind of ill advised, and on occasion would be insulted depending on the context. I know from speaking to friends they say they've got it a bit too and it's sort of mystifying, like the general reaction seems to be "why does someone think that's okay?". I usually try and say it to someone in a joking way and they get the message, if I know them.

sorry if this is obvious, but what baggage does it carry?

How long have you got?

sh1t, i'm usually very guilty of this when i'm in holland, though i know it's a dumb thing to do. i would probably try to avoid just repeating within earshot what someone had just said, that's another level of insulting i think.

anyone english moving to rural ireland is probably going to have their accent copied 'for the craic' if my entire secondary school experience counts for anything (and it hasn't so far, god knows)

no baggage at all for an irish person to be mocked by an english person, in england. none at all.

ha, ok, yes, I wasn't thinking about it like that

sometimes i unconsciously adopt other people's accents when i am talking to them, then worry that they might think i am taking the piss. i don't think this is what ronan means, though.

I think it's mostly funny when ppl do scottish accents. is it actually offensive?

i know ppl who do stuff like this and it's never meant maliciously, they're just going for a really easy kind of comedy (literally the same as 'doing a funny voice' or doing an impression of someone in their mind) and don't really get that it has historically been a kind of humour that has been employed by ppl who have various other opinions that they wouldn't be so quick to agree with.

I think it's mostly funny when ppl do scottish accents. is it actually offensive?

It's funny 'cos they can't do them

it's really context sensitive, like anything in the racial sphere[/stupidly obvious]

The English are a terrible man for the comedy Irish accents. Terrible, I tella ya.

Slipped into Italian at the end there

that's in rother bad taste, mai good min

sure twas all in craic and fuckit djano

Gorblimey, it's bang aht of order

Sometimes doing the accent isn't meant as a joke but an inclusivity.

i.e. adopting mannerisms of someone you are speaking to is unconscious. (e.g. "He's a bad man for the drink" or "I'll be after breaking me leg")

It happens when I hear people drifting into cod-geordie when talking to my wife. Of course, there's the irritating 'Howway mon" where it's more a combo of welsh and pakistani. but sometimes it's a repetition of a phrase in return as part of the discussion at hand.

Sometimes doing the accent isn't meant as a joke but an inclusivity.

Not really working very well then

I'm not saying for a second that Irish people (or myself) are somehow free from awkward gaffes in this respect.

It is v strange tho, maybe it's a good thing in that it shows any malice towards Irish people is gone, but on the other hand it can feel a bit patronising. EG the above incident, the guy seemed v normal, like the sort of person who would be outraged if you called him a racist, but I was furious.

If I know someone they could probably say "you thick fucking mick" and I wouldn't care.

x-post to Mark, yeah that kind of thing wouldn't bother me really. It's more like when you meet someone and the first thing they can do is say something in an Irish accent, as if to "break the ice". Seems ludicrous.

I think also there's an element of "Hey we're cool now right Irishman?" about it and to some extent it's like "Yes we're cool" but not without an element of "but please don't do that accent".

I have two friends who do this with - "at", you might say - three other friends on the regular - it's all pretty close knit and good natured but apart from the issues of baggage it gets hella boring to listen to let alone be the target of it

That's the other thing, nobody lampoons Ireland better than an Irish person...

As I say, my wife admits to going into 'autopilot' on meeting new people, as they get the whole 'accent' thing out of their system. Generally 15 mins. Sometimes it's fine, and sometimes it comes over as being "oh, you are working class? How Fascinating!" especially when it's in a work situation and she's operating at a high corporate level, etc.

totally guilty of friendly mockery of Geordie accents (never knowingly within earshot of actual Geordies tho - how cowardly). the more high pitched the better.

Got classic memories from years ago of another friend of mine, hammered in some bar talking to Gruff Rhys, telling him that he'd heard him being interviewed on Radio 5 that morning and then proceeding to do an impression of him talking on the radio, to his face

ah the welsh don't mind

Man, comedy Welsh accents always end up somewhere just outside Karachi

(xp) They're just pleased you've noticed them

friend just sent me this

the English are lovely ones for the impersonation, so they are

I'm English btw

he'd ate the leg off the lamb of god. an awful man.

I blame Father Ted.

and I blame "Auf Wiedersehen Pet", so there you go.

you've neither of you seen glenroe

I'm sure they showed that in Scotland

... while everybody else in the country was getting the World Cup final or sumthin'

irish tv's top pin up was a woman called biddy. for twenty years.

RRRRAWRRR

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f7/RT%C3%89_Glenroe_Biddy_1984.jpg/200px-RT%C3%89_Glenroe_Biddy_1984.jpg

Definitely showed this in Scotland

i love glenroe. i have this plan to one day ask rte for the tapes and do a blog about it. with mirthful results.

Every time someone does a comic Irish accent God kills a leprauchan.

aye^^^^

let's not turn this into a "scary race" war

"scary" may not be exactly the right word but the racial connotations behind cankles' post is exactly why you are more likely to see someone doing a comedy Irish or Australian accent in polite company than you are to see someone doing a comedy Pakistani or Mexican accent

it's not anyone else's right to say who is and isn't allowed to care about something like this. if someone can somehow specifically say why it's utterly okay to impersonate an accent of a race of people in a country which occupied/enslaved/murdered etc that race then go ahead and explain to me.

i'm not massively offended by this, and as I said if it's a friend or something that's one thing, but I do think it's really bad in certain contexts (eg at work/with someone you've just met), and also think it's unusual. reckon most people on the thread loosely agreed with my stance anyhow.

x-post yeah cos Irish people in Britain have never really caused any violence.

not sure how this is related but sometimes when i'm drunk i'll go on a little rant about how no one cares that we have drinks in the US called 'irish car bombs' and 'black and tans' and not 'palestinian suicide bombs' or whatever how it should really make you think~~~ but most ppl are like whatever the irish love drinkin and they're so friendly who cares!

cos the irish terrorism is over for a whole 10-15 years!

This is one of those instances where actual, provable history doesn't seem to correlate to expected, logical behavior IMO.

You get this type of thing with Irish, Polish, Russians, Germans, French, Italians, etc; pretty much anyone who could be generally described as "white European". There's a certain level of interchangeability, at least here in the US (even Australia/NZ gets lumped into this).

yeah i think it's that everyone in america is "half-irish" too, tho

it's a realization i kinda came to a while back when i was readin this thread about chinese pps on another message board, the group talking on there was like half white half se asian, and the white pps were all like making fun of the lil old asian ladies who sell scallion pancakes or whatever and all the white pps were REALLY (rearry) getting into it, like really leaping at the chance to pile onto china ppl, and the azns started fuming and piped in all like YO THOSE OLD LADIES MAKE MAD BANK THEY ARE THE JEWS OF ASIA but the most salient point they made, that really stuck with me, was when they were like MAYBE IT'S EASIER TO PICK ON THE CHINKS CUZ YOU'RE ALL AFRAID OF NIGGERS (i am literally quoting here this isnt me being funny okay guys dont SB me for that) - and that rang pretty true imo, like i think what happens is ppl are so pent-up w/unconscious resentment about not getting to unleash the RaHoWa fury on the more premium races, that when more socially acceptable targets present themselves they REALLY go overboard piling onto them fools - that's why fats are the most miserable and degraded of any group in america today, they are everyone's punching bag

it's a realization i kinda came to a while back when i was readin this thread about chinese pps

So, presumably a comedy Mexican 'accent' ends with a comedy sneeze, amiontheritetrack?

What is the deal with this? Nobody would meet a Pakistani person and mimic their voice would they?

do none of you watch the simpsons?

Apu is bad because he almost kind of re-acceptable-ised something that had stopped being acceptable except amongst Jim Davidson fans obv.

Like it's okay cos I'm doing an impersonation of Apu not just a random Indian dude.

i also like their drawings of japanese people and they're always white

Well, that's like how my dad was wont to say "Youuuu stupid woman!" and that was OK because he was merely impersonating Rene off "Allo Allo".

(a year later he nicked off w/ secretary)

so you're saying the people we impersonate, we become

Ulster accent is kinda lol tho

so you're saying the people we impersonate, we become

― Ant Attack.. (Ste), Wednesday, 6 May 2009 09:51 (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(I never thought of it like that! eyesopened!)

Like it's okay cos I'm doing an impersonation of Apu not just a random Indian dude.

but what's the folow through from this? white people can only impersonate other white people? and so on?

i dunno what you're trying to say here, but if you're trying to impersonate a particular character, i think it's more of a grey area than making a cliche out of a race.

of course, the character itself can be that, i suppose.

so you're saying the people we impersonate, we become

isn't it also that comedy exaggeration is a really good way of disguising/ironising something you really mean?

Well, that was what *I* was thinking at the time.

I wasn't saying impersonations are automatically wrong Darragh but Apu is problematic as a character anyway, the Simpsons writers on the whole tend to ride this "lol people that aren't American" line in a way that doesn't seem ironic as often as not. "Thank you come again" is a brain-worm of a catchphrase but there's something dodgy sounding about random Apu impressions. I'm pretty sure all those kids who used to launch into "Goodness gracious me" every time they saw an Indian or Pakistani back in the 70s/80s weren't mostly knowingly doing a Peter Sellers impression either. The whole point of this thread is that stuff is contextual but I feel pretty awkward if one of the kids does Apu in public tbh.

I don't think making fun of Indians/Pakistanis ever became as taboo in American culture as it has in Britain, e.g. Fisher Stevens in the Short Circuit movies.

political context sucks. i like funny voices (Apu no different from Burns, Mo and others on that front). At least everyone likes Apu, unlike Kahn Souphanousinphone.

Apu isn't just a funny voice tho, he works in a convenience store, on many occasions it's shown that he rips people off, he has an overbearing mother and has an arranged marriage.

The whole point of this thread is that stuff is contextual

really though. it's easy to imagine situations either way where it's cool/it's not cool- i don't tend to drop my jaw at apu all that often, smithers otoh....

what is the real deal with Smithers? YOOOU know what I'm talking about.

the pakistani shopkeeper isn't what you'd call a staple in irish rural life, so maybe i'm just not that sensitive to that caricature- dudes that make it as far west as me all tend to me doctors, dentists and waaaaaay smarter than the locals.

Part two of this: not even annoying just sort of funny. English sports commentators saying "The Guinness will flow long into the night!" when any Irish person wins anything. EG on Sunday an Irish amateur won the Irish Open in golf, it was a wet Sunday and it's a small tournament, and the commentators were like "lakes of Guinness will be consumed no doubt!" etc.

I mean seriously who the fuck is going to go out on the tear for an amateur golfer winning the Open in Baltray...NOT EVEN AN IRISH PERSON.

they're all on a sponsorhips gig i reckon

I mean seriously who the fuck is going to go out on the tear for an amateur golfer winning the Open in Baltray...

I reckon I could be persuaded...

English sports commentators saying "The Guinness will flow long into the night!" when any Irish person wins anything.

Well I suppose it flows long into every night...

that's actually just a cliché. closing times are tightly regulated in ireland.

you're just perpetuating an evil lie

imagine sport commentators saying something stupid.

do i have to close my eyes? is this a trick?

you can't even buy a beer in a shop in Ireland after 22.30.

lol Ireland

that said, alcoholism is still treated like a national affliction that will eventually claim us all.

xp Though you can easily do so in Britain, I'm not so sure it's legal, or am I wrong?

some supermarkets have late licences i think

apparently lots of the 24 hour licenses over here were bought by the corner shops...they're the real heroes

I also enjoy being able to legally drink on the street here.

see, it's always the 2nd generation/irish abroad that become caricatures.

xp aha gotcha that explains why I can get a traveller on the Essex Rd at 1am!

The only people I know who have done a jokey Scottish accent to my face recently have been two girls I work with, one Irish and one Norwegian. It didn't annoy me because it's different when a non-English person does it. The Norwegian one was funny because I wasn't sure at first if she wasn't just talking with her usual accent, the Irish one surprised me because I thought she'd know better. LOL @ the idea of putting on a comedy Norwegian or Irish accent in reply though!

A couple of years before that I was working with a guy who has my immediate superior - though not that superior, it's not that kind of business. From the day I started working with him it was Irn Bru/ *Deep-Fried Mars Bars/ Loch Ness Monster etc etc and constant attempts at a Scottish accent. This went on for months but I laughed it off because, at first, I thought he was quite amusing but it just wore me down after a while and eventually I had to tell him, "Listen, lay off with the Scottish stuff or I'm going to have to report you to HR. If I was West Indian, would you be going on and on and about reggae and cricket and Bob Marley and putting on a comedy Jamaican accent? Now fuck off and never talk to me again." And he hasn't, though I don't work with him any more. By the way, I think he was of Indian extraction, but Caribbean rather than the subcontinent.

(*you get this ALL the time from English people)

was there a major change in dynamic otherwise between it not bugging you and hitting him with the hr bomb?

I'm sure there was something beyond the drip drip dip and the realization, notwithstanding the Scottish thing, that he was a dick, can't remember what it was now though.

thats interesting, but yeah sometimes all it takes is time alright

some privileges you earn, some you use up

He went from Colin Hunt to Colin Cunt.