Northern Ireland Five - Text
Female, born 1966, raised in Derry City, but had been living in Gr. Torrington, Devon, England, for 14 years, when she was recorded and edited by Paul Meier in 2001. She is married to an Englishman, was a marketing executive for tourism groups in the area, and was Deputy Mayor of the town at the time of the recording. Although her years away from Ireland may have softened her accent (she thinks it as strong as ever) many of the signature sounds of Derry can be heard. Notice the characteristic rising tune at the ends of phrases; the vowel shapes of two, huge, goose; and strut, once, buggars; then Plough, town, now; then the heavy rhoticity of nurse, confirmed etc; then notice how times, fine and lime become homonyms of tames, fain, lame.
Among her stories she tells how failing the 11-plus exam (the all important exam that British children of her generation took at age 11) left a lasting scar.
Length of recording 00:05:06
Transcription of Unscripted Speech
I was born in Derry, in Northern Ireland...um., spent...first 19 years and then I went to London, had um...2 years in London, came back, worked on for a bit in Derry, and then I actually left completely in 1982, went to London in um...1988 and I went to...Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, spent a year out there, and then came back, came to Torrington in 1988, end of 1988, and have been here ever since. I don't think me accent has really changed, but I think um..phrases, I've picked up different phrases, Devonshire phrases...that's...more noticeable than my accent, but then..maybe other people notice that my accent's changed, I don't know, the boys tell me when I get a temper then I sound really Irish *laughs* I was the youngest of 8 children um..my dad worked away quite a bit, he worked in London, um, used to come back every 6 weeks for long weekends, and then he was away, so he was away most of the time during--throughout my childhood, my mother was at home, but she started working when I was about 14, so I was left, at home doing most of the cooking and cleaning whilst everybody else was off working. Well a sad memory I remember, which was quite sad and still can be quite sad um...because I've got this thing that I'm a real failure, and I think it really goes back to when I was 11 we had to do an exam called the 11-plus and it was great kind of emphasis put into this exam y'know like pass, and if you passed you got a bike and all sorts of things. And I was sure that myself that I had passed, but I brought this brown envelope up to my parents and waited outside the bedroom to see what the results was and I uh, heard my father say to my mother, "Well you didn't expect her to pass" and it had such a lasting effect on me that's--and I, I'm sure that's where I get insecure so that's quite..a strong memory, really. Well, when I came to Torrington, I just fell in love with it immediately and..and um, one of my...first jobs that I really loved here was managing the uh, the Plough arts center, did that for about 4 and a half years. And while I was working there um, it was very difficult getting funding for the arts, and particularly from the town counsel, so that kind of fired me up to join the town council, they fight the buggers from within and..um, which is what I did, and I've been a town counselor ever since for about 9 years and I absolutely love it because I, I think I've got so much from Torrington and it's really nice to give something back to.
Unscripted Speech Transcribed by Faith Harvey 22 March 2008