Henry Farrell laments the awfulness accents on some new characters on Heroes who are purportedly members of an Irish criminal underclass.
Perhaps it’s understandable that there’s nothing at all resembling an actual Cork accent to be found among them; that might be a bit much to inflict on unsuspecting American television viewers. But there’s not much in the way of Irish accents, full stop. One fella who thinks that Irish people speak like Scotsmen with adenoids, another with standard mid-Atlantic intonations, and a British actress who at least seems to have heard Irish people talking once upon a time, even if her ability to imitate them slips in and out of focus.
Then again, we can’t seem to find actors who can do American Southern accents particularly well, so it shouldn’t be surprising. The late Georgia humorist Lewis Grizzard once remarked of one of the characters in Driving Miss Daisy, “If Dan Ackroyd’s a Southerner, my butt’s a typewriter.”
