An American comedian has had a go at pronouncing Irish towns ahead of coming here on tour.
For the uninitiated, Josh Pray has gone viral on these shores over the years for his videos about the GAA, with him being invited to the 2019 All-Ireland final between Dublin and Kerry.
While Josh still watches the GAA (including a three minute video on how David Clifford is the GOAT after Kerry’s win over Donegal on Sunday), he’s now set to head on a tour of Ireland — and despite most Americans usually trying to pronounce Irish names in a form of paddywhackery, Josh has taken it one step further: pronouncing the names of villages that he could be heading to.
"So since I’m the new official American comedian for Ireland, and I’m coming to Ireland very soon — surprise — I definitely wanna get my pronunciation of the cities and places right, so I can tell the jokes y’all get it," Josh said.
The pronunciations start off fairly well, with him pronouncing towns like Mullingar and Adare with ease, but things go a little haywire when he gets to Ballinasloe — which he pronounces "ballina-zallow" before quipping "that’s a Spanish country."
He manages to get Bray correct thanks to his nephew of the same name, but things go horribly wrong when he tries to pronounce Armagh (Arr-ma) with an "F," and pronounces Naas (nayse) like ‘Nas’ (unfortunately, Kildare State of Mind just didn’t have the same ring to it).
While he definitely needs to work on some of his pronunciations, people gave him a good grade for effort, with one person commenting: "Omg 100% for effort!"
"Tbf [To be fair] I’ve heard Irish people pronounce some of these worse. Fair play," another added, while another commented: "You tried, bless you."
@joshpray239 #greenscreen trying to pronounce #irish cities as an #american 😊😊😊 hey #ireland how did I do 😁😁😁 #fyp #joshpray #ireland ♬ original sound - Josh Pray
Josh became a fan of our national sport back in 2019 when he posted a video of him reacting to the hurling, where he apologised for his preconceived stereotypes of Irish people and asked why we haven’t sued JK Rowling for her "ripping off" hurling with the game of Quidditch.
"First let me apologise to every Irish person for thinking that all you do is throw a few back and have a good time with your tinged red hair and talk with a dope accent," he said.
"These Irish men are moving like fast. Everybody on that field can get a speeding ticket with their feet.
"Hurling has to be the most difficult and eye-hurting sport I have ever witnessed. Everything about hurling seems like it hurts."
His love for the sport paid off back in 2019, as he was flown over to Croke Park to watch the All-Ireland football final between Kerry and Dublin, which ended in a 1-16 to 1-16 draw.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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