The worst Irish accents in Hollywood movies

Speaking of accents, it is very ironic that two I.R.A. Chiefs-of-Staff spoke with foreign accents. The first of these was Seán MacBride (son of an Irish father & English mother) spent much of his childhood in France and French was his first Language. A staunch Irish Republican, as were both his parents, the future Nobel Peace Prize laureate was elected I.R.A. Chief-of Staff in 1936 and held the position for over a year until he was called to the bar. In 1970, London native Seán Mac Stíiofán began a 3½ year period as Chief-of Staff on the fledging Provisional I.R.A., but couldn't disguise his English accent, even when he spoke Irish.

i can only assume that Richard Gere's abysmal "irish" accent in The Jackal must come in at no 11 then, it was terminally bad.

Carrickcourt - if you would have paid attention to the movie The Quiet Man you would have known that the Duke's character was born in Ireland, moved to the US as a child, & then moved back. That would be why he doesn't have an accent.

John Wayne portrayed an American in The Quiet Man.

I guess I am totally dumb but I liked the movie P.S. I love you. I even bought it. I will not argue the accent part but I would watch Gerard Butler if the movie had been in sign language!

howarya, It shows you they didn't know what they were doing. Roma Downey's accent was just right. I'm from Donegal amd she is from Derry our next-door-neighbour county and I can vouch for her accent being the real thing.

For the sake of authenticity every actor should try to deliver lines as close as possible to that of ethnicity of the character being played. It doesn't have to be spot on. However there are limits to how authentic an accent should be because there are accents in specific regions in Ireland that people in other parts of Ireland have difficulty understanding. Parts of Cork, Kerry and Mayo come to mind. Naturally those kind of variations should be avoided. Nevertheless a little more effort should be made.

Murph66, right you are on Donald Sutherland in The Eagle Has Landed. I would nominate that as the all time worst Irish accent -- laden with "shoor nows" etc., the only way I could imagine Sutherland being able to look himself in the mirror would be that he himself never heard an authentic Irish accent. Actually a whole slew of movies about Ireland or the Irish that were filmed in the 1950s and 1960s had tons of bad accents. One fairly good film from 1965, with great actors, Young Cassidy, was based on Sean O'Casey's life and filmed in Ireland -- but only the handful of genuine Irish actors in that film had the accent right (obviously). The rest, particularly star Rod Taylor, were terrible. So bad that they simply let the Brits who played the Anglo Irish get away with their natural British accents!

You seem to think that the norm for a Hollywood movie is reality! LOL These movies and accents are for US, UK, and world consumption and it matters not one wit whether Irish people like the accent or not. I grew up amid immigrants from Ireland and they had various accents. So when I hear fake Irish accent it strikes me as possibly another real Irish accent (except total goofs like the Irish Spring commercial).

How about having a poll on the ten best Irish accents in Hollywodd films? Gregory Peck as Fr. Hugh Flanagan in the Scarlet and the Black pulled off a very authentic Irish accent in that great film.

All the links take me to obscure pages with links to pages that link me back here!!! Very clever, but where are the accents???

Shoot, when I went to County Monaghan, that was the worst Irish accent. The server, for our evening meal, spoke so fast that we couldn't understand a word she said. Hmmm...Maybe she was speaking in Gaelic. LOL She did sit down at the table with us. It was a very funny experience and I loved it.

Worst ever Irish accent: Ann Bancroft playing Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker." Overall a great performance, for which Bancroft won an Academy Award. But the brogue comes and goes, and when it comes it's somewhere between Italian/Polish/Mexican/Irish. (By the way, Annie Sullivan was the child of Famine immigrants, and a recent book—"Beyond the Miracle Worker," by Kim Nielsen—does a wonderful job of putting her life and work into perspective.)

I heard an interview with Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel) and early in her career she tried to get the commercial for Irish Spring. They turned her down because she didn't have enough of a brogue. Have you heard the old commercials for that? Absolutely terrible!

My vote for the worst is Gerard Butler-worse than the other nine combined. For the best accent by a non-Irish actor--Robert Mitchum, at least for someone in a leading role. Speaking of hiring Irish actors for Irish roles, I agree--not only better accents, but better actors. One caveat, actors from the south sometimes stumble when trying to do the Belfast accent, but then that's a different language--isn't it? I wouldn't give DD Lewis too much credit, even though he is the best actor, as his father was from Ireland and he spent a lot of time in the Wicklow mountains.