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Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:41 pm

Can anyone confirm, or deny, whether Durnford's accent had a pronounced Connacht twang or whether this had been lost in view of his travels. Are there any accounts that you know of that refer to this?

Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:47 pm

Kenty

I've never come across anything which provided any clues by commenting on his accent or speech but I'd be very surprised if he grew up as a boy with much of an Irish accent, given the social standing and British military connections of his family.

Then, by the age of twelve, he was off to Germany, where he was educated for four years, by which time it would seem likely that any faint accent might have been lost. Following this, he trained and studied here in Kent (slightly nearer you than me!) for some years (one might say partly formative ones?) before his globe-trotting life.

Given that he was, to all intents and purposes (despite his birthplace and childhood) an English gentleman, I'd personally be very surprised if he had a detectable Irish accent at all by the time he arrived in Natal. There were many officers of Irish birth and family in the British Army but I wonder if there were many Irish accents among them - or what would be called an Irish accent today. It may have depended where they went to school and were brought up. Many of the young army officers from Ireland went to English public schools where fellow pupils came from all over, such as Coghill at Haileybury.

I would have assumed Victorian army officers spoke mainly "received pronunciation" regardless of their geographical origins, as their contact with governesses and public school masters (and fellow pupils) would have been the strongest. The officer material which came from the emerald isle was commonly from relatively wealthy, landed Protestant (and originally English) families, although there were exceptions.

It is a very interesting question because there are quite a few contemporary personal comments about Durnford which have survived and yet I don't recall seeing anything about his accent. If it did merit comment at some time it would no doubt be in some contemporary's memoirs. Officers who'd been born in Ireland but who spoke with no discernable Irish accent must have been the norm, so I doubt if anyone would have thought it worth commenting upon, unless his dialect was distinctively different from other officers, which I doubt. How much early contact he had with children of a different social class (who may have spoke in an Irish accent) before the age of 12 must be in doubt.

One thing of which I am 100% confident - Burt Lancaster's tortuous effort can be safely disregarded!!!

Peter

Posted: Sat Sep 16, 2006 11:34 pm

Peter

I have it in my mind that Clery had a thick Irish 'brogue'. Can't remember where I got it from though.

As ever

Mike

Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:07 am

Well - Thankyou for this. That certainly was a thorough rejoinder. It's a shame in a way because I never fail to smile when I hear dear old Burtie exclaim "Oi think it would be woise t'picquet de hills!!"

Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 3:06 pm

Interesting to see that there was a large number of Irish soldiers in the British army. I wonder how many Irish were at Isandhlwana and the reaction from Ireland when the disaster was announced.

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:01 am

Not all the 'Irish' contingent in the British Army would have enlisted in Ireland, and been domiciled there.

Irish immigration into the UK had been continuous since the early 19th century, receiving a boost with the escalation of famine in Ireland in the mid 19th C, boosting the recruits before AZW.

I'm sure that these families were still regarded as 'Irish' by all and sundry.

Would be interesting to know the statistics, and when these immigrant recruits were eventually classified as 'English', 'Scots', or 'Welsh' ?

Sean

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:37 am

Strangeloop

The Irish press would need to be examined to see the reaction but I would expect it to be similar to that in the British & colonial press, with the possible caveat that several different papers should be consulted because they would generally reflect the policy of their owners and you might, therefore, find some variety. (Paul Bryant Quinn's own work on Welsh newspapers of the time might be instructive here).

Yes, a number of officers and obviously quite a few Irish ORs (and others of immediate Irish descent) were lost at Isandlwana. The number can never be known because very many soldiers who enlisted in England were (as Sean rightly says) first or second generation England-born, with plenty of Kellys or O'Reillys in London or the Midlands taking the shilling. One can't even always be sure that a very rough count of Irish-sounding surnames is much of a clue. For example, endeavours to trace the origins of Pte John Wall, R/D defender, reveal a lot of Wall families in Deptford (his supposed birthplace) and many of these originated in Ireland. All one can say is that they died as British soldiers in the British Army and won their share of plaudits.

The Army also enlisted from all over Ireland because it was present in barracks all over Ireland, which is another reason why most British infantry regiments had their proportion of Irish. No doubt recruits were of the same social and economic background as those in Britain. Obviously, the officers - both before and after purchase was abolished - were a completely different matter, although presumably joined for the same reasons as their counterparts in England, Wales or Scotland - they were second or subsequent sons & needed (largely) to make their own way in life, with no family seat and little property to inherit, so it was the army, the church or the Bar for them

With the Home Rule question coming to the fore as the second half of the century progressed, things might have been beginning to change? I don't know. The Irish landed gentry still went from public school into British Army careers - e.g., Lord Longford (2ABW, Gallipoli etc) - and obviously recruitment for the ranks still depended to an extent on attracting large numbers in Ireland. The army of 1914 had its usual quota but, on the other hand, the coming of the Great War did bring things to a head as far as Home Rule policies were concerned (Edward Carson, etc. etc.) and since 1916/1922 etc it has presumably been a different matter altogether!

Going by the information seen on pre-1922 soldiers' service papers, any Irish postings for all British soldiers appear to have been considered a "Home" posting as the periods spent in Ireland don't appear to be included in "overseas" service. Someone will hopefully put me right there if that's not correct.

The sad thing (in my opinion) is that many soldiers who fell in the Great War and who came from the part which later became the Republic went unmourned officially from 1922 until fairly recently in Eire.

I think there were some postings on a previous thread on this forum which discussed the proportion of Irish in the British Army in 1879 or in Victorian times generally.

Peter

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:59 pm

If you're Irish-based and you'd like something Irish to get your teeth into why doesn't one of you research the Irish survivor of Isandhlwana Sergt. Maj. Thomas Sharp D coy 1/1st NNC by starting with his account in the Irish times 5th May 1879.
I for one would like to know more about him and whether his family are still around and have anything buried away in the attic.

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 4:07 pm

Peter....on Mr. Lancaster's speech, what do you think was the kind of accent Burt was going for in the film? Maybe Scotch-Anglo-Irish-Afrikaans- US East?????.. Wink

...I wondered myself how he got around to speaking like that....plus you figure he heard and picked up how South Africans speak....

Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 9:39 pm

Rich

Well, I suppose he was simply attempting his idea of a bit of good old "Paddie blarney", as if Durnford had just walked off a building site rather than being a British Army officer. The need to disguise an American accent was also presumably one of his chief aims, which only highlights the silly idea of casting the role to an American in the first place, as (to me) the film lost all credibility as soon as he opened his mouth. Good actor, wrong part.

Still, we've been down this road before. (And so has poor old Dick van Dyck!)

Peter

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:06 am

Peter,

I've three family member's Service Papers, all pre AZW.

None of them show Ireland garrisoning or recruiting as Foreign service.

On the earliest,
discharge to pension from the 79th was from Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
No mention of any Irish Service.

On the latest,
enlistment was at Belturbet, Co. Cavan,
and the Buffs came direct from Ireland to the Cape, in 1876.

No mention of any Irish Service.

Sean

Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:41 am

Sean

Thanks. Yes, that exactly matches my own findings, in which the time spent in Ireland is not calculated separately in the summary columns one usually sees when home and overseas service are totted up by years and days, so it was clearly considered as Home service (which, of course, it then was, as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland).

Peter

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:30 pm

thanks Peter and I wonder how Burt got the part (Sheldon would most likely know!)...and can you imagine giving the Durnford part to Al Pacino?...well he did Richard III you know.... Wink

...

And speaking of this accent/speech business I wonder and I am going out on a limb here but is there any probability that the speech of those AZW participants are on a cylinder or something so we can hear how they spoke and sounded? Anything perhaps made or preserved at all? I only say this because I have heard the explorer Shackleton speaking and it was something to hear the fellow. Didn't sound at all like I thought he would be..a revelation!

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:41 pm

I always thought that Burt Lancaster co-financed the film. I may be wrong. It would explain why they allowed him a very romantically tragic death with all the dramatic music over.

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:17 pm

yeah and he certainly died hard!.....