Amazon says the new Irish accent for its Alexa virtual assistant features distinctive Irish "th" sounds that differ from US or UK voice options, while words ending in "ght" will sound like a Dublin "th" rather than an English "t."

The updated Irish accent also recognizes and responds to distinct Irish phrases, such as "Alexa, what's the craic?" and "Alexa, who's your man?"

Alexa's new Irish accent is available for download from today, November 17.

Dennis Stansbury, Amazon’s Alexa country manager for Ireland and the UK, told the Irish Independent that the company began developing an Irish-English voice option for Alexa after receiving feedback from Irish customers. 

He said it was difficult to develop an Irish voice option because of the large number of "different and distinct Irish accents."

"Our team of language experts created a number of different accent variations and we tested them with internal and external Irish natives to help us define the final accent," Stansbury told the Irish Independent. 

Customers need to install the Amazon Echo's latest software update and ensure that its location is set to Ireland to be able to use the new Irish-English accent option. 

Only a female Irish-English voice option is available at present. 

The new Amazon Irish-English comes about two years after a study found that Belfast and Dublin accents were the toughest for both the Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices to comprehend.

In Co Kerry, social media star Tadhg Fleming went viral for (hilariously) portraying his Irish father attempting to interact with Alexa: