The Irish accent has been voted the most attractive by people living in Britain and Ireland.
It’s good news but it begs the question, which ‘Irish accent’ seeing as the soft tones of rural Kerry and Cork are a million miles away from the harsher sounds of say, inner city Dublin.
But no matter, our generic Irish accent tops the poll ahead of the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and the poshest of all accents, as spoken by the Queen.
Irish celebrities didn’t fare so well though when it came in the list of most attractive voices. None of them featured in the top ten. At the head of the list was Sir David Attenborough whose soothing tones were way out in front of everyone else with nearly three out of 10 people voting for him.
Second in line was comedian and TV presenter Stephen Fry with 19% and actress Joanna Lumley with 18%.
There can be no denying that the Irish accent, from whichever part of the country, has a unique twang to it, even though it can sometimes be difficult to understand as with these three fantastic characters who shot to fame on social media because of their colourful but impenetrable way of speaking.
Dan Kellehar, Joe Kelly and Johnny McCarthy were filmed sitting in the Top of Coom pub on the Cork/Kerry border enjoying a refreshing pint, when they are asked by the interviewer how important the place is to them. The response is almost impossible to translate, although they all seem perfectly capable of listening to each other as the three men share a joke and a laugh.
Take a look at the video.
The poll that suggested that the Irish accent was the most popular was carried out Virgin Media for the launch of its voice activated Virgin TV 360 platform.
Other interesting snippets to emerge included the fact that more than 30% of people said they put on “tech-tongue” – a more refined accent with the rough edges smoothed out – when speaking to smart devices like Alexa.
A further 20% said they change their accents to impress a potential partner with 10% doing the same to impress their boss.
David Bouchier, of Virgin Media, said: “From Cockney to Cornish and Geordie to Glaswegian, our new Virgin TV 360 voice-control feature can understand a rich tapestry of accents and dialects to help TV fans search for their favourite content.
“It’s clear from our research that the subtle differences in our voices can have significant effects on how we are perceived by the outside world, with many of us changing up the way we speak depending on who or what we are talking to – with the same applying to tech.
“Although it has become the norm for many of us to speak to devices every day, whether that’s our TV remote or smart speaker, it’s interesting to see we’re still addressing them like strangers.”
We wouldn’t want to cast doubt on Virgin’s claims that the 360 voice-control feature can deal with all accents but just to be sure, it would be good to see how it coped with the guys from the Top of Coom pub.
If it could understand them, that would be very impressive.
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