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The worst Irish accents in Hollywood movies

Julia Roberts and Sean Connery may have won Oscars, but they can't pull off an Irish accent!

By
Conn Corrigan,
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 1:06 AM
Updated Sunday, January 23, 2011, 7:49 AM

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Julia Roberts as Mary Reilly
Julia Roberts as Mary Reilly

The Irish accent, judging from some of Hollywood's attempts at it over the years, must surely be one of the most difficult for actors to master. We've plowed through the archives and nominated our top 10 worst offenders. What do you think? Read down through our list or use the playlist on the right to listen to the top 10 Worst Hollywood Irish accents!

 
1. SEAN CONNERY IN DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE"
The gold standard to judge against all other bad Irish accents must surely remain Sean Connery's portrayal of Michael McBride, in the Walt Disney classic "Darby O' Gill and the Little People."
 

2.SEAN CONNERY IN "THE UNTOUCHABLES"
That was in 1959; by 1987, when he starred as the tough Irish cop Jim Malone in "The Untouchables," things had scarcely improved (though ironically, he nabbed the Best Supporting Actor Oscar).
 
it's not just the Irish accent that the Bond star has grappled with it - no doubt he also made the cut for some Top 10 List of Bad Russian Accents for his portrayal of Captain Marko Ramius,  in  "The Hunt for Red October."
 
3. KEVIN SPACEY IN "ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL"
Every so often, U.S. actors - even really good, respected actors like Kevin Spacey - come out with stuff like "Ordinary Decent Criminal," a fairly unremarkable movie save for the fact that the main stars all try to outdo one another on the bad Irish accent front.
 
It's a kind of bizarre concoction of various Irish regional accents - a little bit of Dublin, a touch of Northern Ireland - that slips into American every fifth sentence or so.
 
It's astonishing that Colin Farrell, a native Dubliner, didn't think of saying to Spacey, "What the f**k, Kevin?! No one in Ireland, and I mean no one, talks like that! Now go get a voice coach and give the Oirish accent a rest!"
 
This mustn't have happened - and indeed, the director, Thaddeus O'Sullivan, himself an Irishman, somehow failed to spot that Spacey's co-star, Linda Fiorentino, had an equally ridiculous accent. Shame on both O'Sullivan and Farrell for not spotting these...
 
It remains a mystery why this film actually got made, when John Boorman's "The General" - a movie about the same thing - came out before it, and is vastly superior.

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Posted by Youthguy on Apr 12, 2011, 10:00 PM EDT
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.
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Posted by maymeamy on Apr 12, 2011, 03:09 PM EDT
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.
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Posted by sregdoor on Feb 12, 2011, 11:42 AM EST
John Wayne portrayed an American in The Quiet Man.
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Posted by ladyBoru on Feb 11, 2011, 05:15 PM EST
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!
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Posted by pacifist on Feb 10, 2011, 07:07 AM EST
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.
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Posted by pacifist on Feb 10, 2011, 07:00 AM EST
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.
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Posted by edmundburke on Feb 09, 2011, 08:37 PM EST
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!
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Posted by CitizenWhy on Feb 09, 2011, 09:55 AM EST
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).
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Posted by pacifist on Feb 09, 2011, 04:18 AM EST
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.
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Posted by Newrone on Feb 08, 2011, 03:58 PM EST
All the links take me to obscure pages with links to pages that link me back here!!! Very clever, but where are the accents???
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Posted by S7McCabe on Feb 08, 2011, 12:22 PM EST
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.
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Posted by peterquinn on Feb 08, 2011, 10:04 AM EST
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.)
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Posted by howareya on Jan 25, 2011, 11:11 AM EST
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!
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Posted by slainte39 on Jan 25, 2011, 01:31 AM EST
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.
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Posted by catherineu on Jan 24, 2011, 01:38 PM EST
Tom Cruise is a joke. Not only can he NOT do a brogue, but has anyone seen Valkerie? He played a German soldier and could not even do a German accent. How in the world can an "I-am-an-ACTOR" such as Cruise be so bad that they cannot even get to a dialect coach and even try to learn a brogue or accent. Same for Julia Roberts. Hollywood is a joke..my advice--if Hollywood is going to make films with Irishmen or women--might I suggest hiring Cillian Murphy, or Padriac Delaney, Orla Fitzgerald, Susan Lynch, John Lynch,James Nesbitt, Finoula Flannagin...there are so many wonderful actors from Ireland--use them!
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Posted by Whitepark on Jan 24, 2011, 01:15 PM EST
Sad to say the Brouge is slowly dying in Ireland, with the great Education system in Ireland today the youth have no trace of it, but I still miss the musical lilt of the Brouge when I visit there as it is so unpretencious.
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Posted by Dylyn.Prosser on Jan 24, 2011, 12:24 PM EST
I noticed when Sons of Anarchy did several episodes in Northern Ireland, they actually did hire actors from Belfast. Most notable was Paula Malcomson. BTW, her American accent is very convincing. Only once on Caprica did I hear her say something that made me wonder where she was from. Until she played Maureen Ashby on Sons of Anarchy, I had no idea she was from Northern Ireland.
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Posted by chesapeake on Jan 24, 2011, 11:44 AM EST
Slow day?
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Posted by connorailish on Jan 24, 2011, 10:09 AM EST
I could never understand the rational of going to the trouble of making a movie about Ireland, or any other country for that matter, and not bothering to do a decent accent. Here's a thought, If an actor can't do it, hire an actual Irish actor to do it! After all, a person's accent in a picture is part of the over all role they are playing. So it is fitting that Sean Connery didn't win for "The Untouchables". The accent was so bad it distracted from his performance, in my opinion, just like his role in "Red October". He always sounds the same. Daniel Day Lewis and Cate Blanchette have the whole package
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Posted by SunnyGe on Jan 24, 2011, 09:52 AM EST
Donal1951 is right. I am a real Kentucky hillbilly and Liam Neeson nailed the accent. I have a friend who says that people who grow up in isolated areas only depending on each other form a kinship with other people who grew up the same way, so in my friend's theory, the Irish and the Hillbillies are all brothers of the spirit, being fiercely independent, addicted to having a good time, and watchful of outsiders. My friend sometimes throws mountain Italians and Jamaicans into the same kinship category. Maybe that explains Liam's accent..
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Posted by MikeyMurphs on Jan 24, 2011, 12:28 AM EST
How about the accents they horribly attempted and failed at in Boondock Saints I & II
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Posted by donal1951 on Jan 23, 2011, 06:02 PM EST
Switching the topic around a bit, Liam Neeson is the master of accents. I saw him in an early film where he played a Kentucky hillbilly. I have friends who are real Kentucky hillbillies. He sounded just like them.
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Posted by DrTrelawney on Jan 23, 2011, 04:44 PM EST
Groan! Carrickcourt: Wayne wasn't doing an Irish accent in The Quiet Man. He was playing an American. Bogsidebunny: Barry Fitzgerald was born and raised in Dublin. It's hardly surprising he did a good Irish accent.
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Posted by RobinOCork on Jan 23, 2011, 02:31 PM EST
Good thing Schwarzenegger never attempted one!
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Posted by teresajb on Jan 23, 2011, 01:12 PM EST
Why don't they just hire Irish actors? Problem solved.
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Posted by Sparklet on Jan 23, 2011, 12:57 PM EST
I never heard Sean Connery do an accent. He always sounds the same to me. Matthew Goode did a passable accent in Leap Year..just. Gerard Butler is of Irish heritage but his accent was dire. Tom Cruise's was just embarrassing.
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Posted by sonshine1949 on Jan 23, 2011, 11:29 AM EST
To Bogsidebunny - just an FYI - - Barry Fitzgerald was born in Dublin. That might explain his authentic accent.
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Posted by sonshine1949 on Jan 23, 2011, 11:26 AM EST
Sean Connery is from Scotland, so I doubt if he was actually trying to do an Irish accent. Hollywood has a basic theory that if you can get close it's good enough because the public will be too busy watching the movie to worry about the accent. (I guess that didn't apply to you.) Sean did not receive his Academy Awards for his accent - he received them for his acting. Apparently, you were not interested enough in Sean's movie content because your focus was not on the acting. As for Julia, well, there is no valid argument for that one. It was just bad. Sorry.
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Posted by mmccreedy on Jan 23, 2011, 10:28 AM EST
Now why am I not suprised that Hollywood can't get this right? I think it is more about laziness than ignorance, but then again, with Hollywood, one really never knows for sure do they now?
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Posted by srdools on Jan 23, 2011, 10:14 AM EST
Yeah,It's always a high pitched over the top voice that sounds like the leprechaun from the "lucky charms cereal" commecial that runs in the U.S.Pretty crappy.


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