We people from Lisburn, and indeed Northern Ireland, have always found a united kinship in our sporting heroes. The retirement today from horseracing of AP McCoy will draw many of us together. In spirit. He is the epitome of the never-say-die Paddy. Like McGuigan in boxing and Higgins in snooker, he raised himself and his followers to another level.
Long live McCoy!

Dabbler

Maybe in our sporting heroes yes but in our inheritance and dialect I have my doubts. We mentioned it often here but how many norniron people went across the " Scheugh" for a few weeks to work and returned with such an English accent we could barely understand them? Look a the majority of our Street and Town names, English, Scottish , anything but Ulster! The only place the Ulster dialect has been preserved is in the USA. I remember reading that a team from Queens University Belfast who wanted to research the Ulster dialect had to go there as it was the only place where it was still spoken. ( Hillbilly)

Looking back I now find it laughable when I remember how my grandmother, an old Derryaghy woman tried to disguise her dialect.

Granted, only since I lived elsewhere have I learned that a dialect is part of a person´s culture and should be encouraged and not ashamed off.

donald



http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2012/03/the-word-hillbilly-linguistic-mystery-and-popular-culture-fixture.html

https://books.google.de/books?id=I957OegamHMC&pg=PR17&lpg=PR17&dq=Hill+Billy+Ulster&source=bl&ots=puMDicmjvp&sig=d0LZ-kycH5WyTQSXQR0MSH7AAKY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=efk7VYf1KdayoQSXg4CQDA&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Hill%20Billy%20Ulster&f=false

donald,
the dialect we use may not be the ancient one? but it's still a very distinct dialect. places i go to , and there's a culture of clubs here in a group anywhere, the accent comes through. i think there's a flatness or something in the pronouncments but it 'floats' through apart from the others. it's pleasant as well, i've had ladies remark in big mixed company ''i like to hear your accent'', so can't be all bad.
tom

Donald
Your shift from sport to accent leaves me puzzled.
Despite the day being Anzac Day, reminding us of far more important sacrifices and achievements than those in sport, my own emotions were both shaken and stirred by The Great McCoy. Whilst mentally paying tribute to the brave Australians, New Zealanders and Turks, as well as the dour British Tommies of that distant battle, I was aware that never again would 'wee Tony' display his rare talents over the sticks. That my Parkinson's specialist doctor commented on my broad accent, still with me after sixty years away from my birthplace, seems of little significance;

Dabbler you or me could of been champions jockey if you had two or three mounts a year more than the rest of the jockeys and as for barry mcguigan who did he ever beat only one boxer with a reputation and he had a pension book and as for alex higgans what a joke and you forgot about the great dennis taylor also Barry McGuigan wasnt from the north he was from the south

sorry should of been two or three hundred mounts more a year

Dabbler / Tom
I´m delighted to hear that you have retained your accent and still speak the norniron dialect. Like I said earlier we discussed it here that lots of people went across the "scheugh" as we said in Lisburn " to see what time it was " and returned speaking " Londonese " expressions. " Cor Blimey", to name one. Someone here said he was in Dublin for a rugby match between Ireland and Wales and came across an old Lisburnian who had moved to Wales a short time before and was selling Welsh flags with a Welsh accent. I won´t name him.
Keep the aul fleg flying!
donald

What a lot of nonsense about accents, some people unintentally loose their native accents others hold on to them. I left Northern Ireland 69 years ago when I guess most of you were still learning your ABCs but still I believe have my Ulster accent as when talking to a Real Estate agent re selling our house she said to me "I know where you are from" Northern Ireland" on the other hand my uncle who was in the RAF for forty years spoke like an English Gentleman. Mauri

Hi Donald the likeable character you mention now deceased I had the pleasure of meeting him selling the flags after he came of the ferry not in Dublin but in Cork City and he offered to take us to a great resturant that he knew of were we could eat for next to nothing ,however I had to decline as we were heading for Rosscarbery in west Cork and had already eating , but better company would have been hard to find ! May he rest in peace ,the Town is the poorer for his passing Kind Regards Ted

For those not familiar with our Ulster - Scots dialect

donald





http://lowcountrylad.blogspot.de/2013/01/betsy-grey-and-hearts-of-down.html

http://www.rampantscotland.com/poetry/blpoems_wwrain.htm

Meaning of unusual words:
lichtnin'=lightning
awa'=away
nocht ava=nothing at all
dreepin'=dripping
scheugh=drainage ditch
ilka drookit=every soaking
siller blabs=silver blobs
rowin'=wrapped up
odds=consequence
the morn=in the morning

i was meaning that if in a mixed crowd and someone else from norniron is there, the accent just ''floats across''.
i do tai-chi here and in gold coast. the gold coast meeting is quite social as well. a good coffee break and yarn about halfway. there's a chap from belfast called jim and we discuss this and that. we get a han taken out of us people say, glad you two are getting on well, you're the only two here that can understand what you're blxxx saying?? all a good laugh. all good fun tom

sean
I'VE just spent a couple of days with an eejit like yerself. A cockney, but with the same attitude. He tells me that Lewis Hamilton is an arrogant git, and that HE could be world champion if he had the best car.
Barry , the Clones Cyclone, was not the greatest boxer in the world, but, combined with his pleasant familyman personality, he did it for me.
Hurricane Higgins was a drunk, and his stupid threat to have the very nice Dennis Taylor shot should have had him banned for a while, but he WAS the fastest and just about the best in his time, and he made snooker worth watching on TV.
My cockney mate is opinionated about many sports, but it is a joy to be in his company - the cocky cockney.

the best thing i can say about Alex Higgens is he made snooker a watchable sport with his fast and reckless type of play,snooker was a very boring game to watch the likes of Joe Davis and John Pullman and very slow play,then along came Higgens, he turned the game on its head and made it what it is today,a great pity the way he finished up, and may he rest in peace,yes Dabbler he should have been severely warned and suspended over the Dennis Taylor incident

Donald
Your reference to inheritance reminds me of the chasm that continues to divide our people.That chasm that pushed them into a civil war. The powerful divide that sets Nationalists against Loyalists. The poor uneducated masses are as stuck in their mentality today as they were before the signing of the Peace Treaty. Gusty Spence read, educated himself, and tried to teach the masses. A pause ensued, broken here and there by beatings and knee-cappings. Indeed, the pause continues; but it is a pregnant pause, awaiting the emergence of a new Brendan Hughes to ignite the flame that surely smoulders in the secretive backstreets of Belfast and Derry.
I know that some reading this will immediately jump to the false conclusion that because I write DERRY, that I am a Fenian. I have no religion, and learned of The Troubles only through The Internet. I was horrified at the atrocities inflicted by both sides of the community while I struggled through a more 'normal' life here in England.

Dabbler
I agree entirely, the norniron citizens would be better advised to join ranks and strive together to achieve better living standards for themselves and their children. But then again wasn´t that an often practised strategy from the troops of Giaus Julius Caesar = "divide and conquer (divide et impera"?

http://dailycollegian.com/2011/02/17/divide-and-conquer/

Donald
We do not like to admit that we, or our fathers and forefathers might possibly have been wrong. I spent most of my adult life in England voting, thinking, and acting, Left-wing. I even marched through London behind Arthur Scargill in support of the miners. It is only in recent years that I started to question my thinking. It has now finally dawned on me that the miners earned more than I could have hoped for, that I personally never got, or claimed, any of the 'benefits' that I insisted the poor should get, and that every government was limited to the amount of taxes they could draw in; and that some of the people really ARE 'more equal than others', George Orwell coined the term ironically, and I used it often to support my leftist views, but, unfortunate though it may be for me, many, many people are much smarter, and entitled to earn more. Some lazy or even less competent mortals than myself must expect less.

Dabbler
I was not talking about wages or working hours. I meant better living conditions, housing, medical care and not , after someone working all his life having to go cap in hand to the benefits office to get a supplement to his pension to live upon. My grandfather ,born 1887, started his working life as a "half timer" then worked until he was 70 in the mill and afterwards then had to dork as park ranger to be able to buy a few cigarettes. Even then having to sit at home until one of his sons came and took him to the pub and bought him a few pints.
donald

joe your cockney friend is 100% right about lewis hamilton the only eejits in lisburn live in hill street and stand outside smithfield public house also i think you believe what the press tells you and as for your spelling of yourself that was some teaching from lisburn boys like myself lol

well said Donald you have more of an idea than our polititions

sean
gud man yerself. wish I was standin' outside the pub with them. I bet they're not talkin' about politicians. lol

Donald
In any country, income and taxes decide the standard of living that a government can afford to provide.

Donald
With low wages followed by a low pension, I have saved a few grand and live in a respectable home.
I moan like hell about politicians, but I have survived.
sean makes me smile - are the boozers from Hill Street any better/worse off?

joe 50 years ago when i lived in hemel hampstead and worked in luton same as you i bought into a pension plan it was a lot of money out of my wages every week but i live quite comfortably now as a result of it maybe you should of done the same then you would of not had to scrimp and save now also by the way the way you talk on this i dont think your family in brighton would give you a free reign to stand outside smithfield house if you were to come home keep on smiling

Donald
The politicians give me NOTHING.
sean
I just spent a night in a Brighton hotel with my wife and two friends - dinner with a bottle of wine per couple, (she doesn't drink) - bed and breakfast. Today, I paid seventy quid for a service on the boiler, and the same company will be back shortly to fit a new pump at twice that price. You're right; she wouldn't stand for me boozing my money away.My question is - who is better off - the boozer or the saver?
If my wife did not suffer from severe backache, to say nothing of cancer, we could have travelled far and wide in the past ten years, as we did in the previous ten.
I'm still smiling, even with Parkinson's Disease - AND I mowed the grass yesterday - MY grass, on MY wee bit of land.

I'm gettin' ahead of myself; lol. The heating company rang to quote for replacing the pump, and the missus tells me the quote is too high. So there ye go - she won't let me spend too much on anything, nivver mind alcohol.

Dabbler
remember that aul Lisburn saying in pubs, " let me pay for these, you´re working"!
donald

Donald
That is very funny. It applies here now too.

'Sean', your post sounds genuine, and not only because of the wrongly spelt Hempstead, and the grammatical misuse of the word 'of' instead of 'have', but also your intimate knowledge of my background. I am pleased that you profited from your time at Vauxhall. During my time there I was able to take my family on holiday to Spain, and to Devon and Cornwall in a brand new car.