At one time, that was certainly true. The Second and Third Era Klans were well-known for tailoring their message to local prejudices, so they appealed to anti-Catholic sentiment in the Midwest (and weirdly, in Maine).
Elsewhere, there were too many Catholics to do that sort of thing. The Third Era Klan actively recruited the Irish in Boston, at least after Prohibition, and by the 1960s anti-Catholic messaging all but disappeared from the Klan - to the point where it had priests among its members.
So there’s no reason why an Irishman couldn’t be sympathetic to the Klan in the 1990s. Besides, he could well be a Protestant descended (or claiming to be descended) from English immigrants.
See, to my ears, there’s clear Irish-sounding giveaways there that to me make Eamon Andrews in that clip sound Irish: the way he says “party,” “hear,” “commerce,” “publishing,” “off,” “elsewhere,” “certain.” I can’t quite describe exactly what I’m hearing, but in many vowels preceding an “r” in Irish English, it sounds to me like the vowel is shifted a bit, like it’s more open and fronted, I think.
Well alright then, it seems like there’s still not a consensus here. I’m leaning towards “wherever Eamon Andrews is from” after seeing that clip. As to the above posts, I recently watched a documentary about Ulster Unionists and I did not once hear the kind of accent that we’re discussing here.
If you’re waiting for a consensus here, you’ll be waiting for a very long time: especially if you give equal weight to every opinion offered.
I’m puzzled why you seem so resistant to accepting that this is an Irish accent, despite the quite definite assurances of actual Irish posters, and your own judgement.
I still wonder who this guy is, how he wound up in that group, and what he’s doing now. Did he stick with the “Aryan Nations”? Did he drift into some other weird group or cult? Is he in prison? Is there any chance he renounced his views and regained some sanity? It’s so odd that he’s uncredited in the cast of the documentary. And none of the people involved in making that documentary seem to have contact information to ask.
I hear slight hints of German making me wonder if his first language is German but he learned British English as a child and has made a strong effort to speak some sort of (non-regional) educated British English.
He also makes me wonder if his is from a South African English-speaking family and has made a strong effort to eliminate any trace of any Afrikaans or South African English accent.
In any case, I doubt that he, or anyone else, ever grew up speaking with that accent.
Do the various Irish posters have something to say to these people who are hearing German or South African (which I understand is a Dutch dialect called Boer or Afrikaner that sounds somewhat similar to German) - because I don’t hear that at all, and I have heard South African before, I watched a documentary with many people from there (Boer-speaking) and did not hear anything similar to that guy.
It’s not that weird since actually Maine has more Acadians than any part of America and there has always been discrimination against the Acadians who practice Catholicism traditionally. They are a long-persecuted people but left a tremendous legacy in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes (you will find lots of Benoits, Boudreaus and Melansons in Cape Breton.)
Well, just to be clear, that’s not Eamonn Andrews’ native accent. It’s not anyone’s native accent. Eamonn Andrews was a working-class Dubliner. His native accent sounds like this.
Having said that, neither is it an affectation. It’s a learned accent, but it’s his real accent.
I wonder how many of the people commenting in this thread would recognise my accent as an Irish accent?
This is all pretty damn interesting. Is this accent always a learned accent (i.e. are there any people who grow up speaking with that inflection, without any kind of deliberate studying?)
Not that particular accent, which is basically extinct. But I’m sure there are lots of middle-class couples who speak with a deregionalised Irish accent who are rearing children and sending them to schools where the other children speak like that too. Speaking for myself, I was explicitly taught how to speak “properly” (meaning in effect, not to have a Dublin accent). For example, I learned at the age of 5 to pronounce the “th” sounds in English - in my native variety of English “theme” and “team” sound identical, so I had to be taught to put my tongue between my teeth to say “theme”. I was encouraged to open my mouth to pronounce “bus” as /bʌs/ instead of /bʊs/, etc.
The resulting neutralised accent is not native to any locality but nor is it an affectation; it’s just how I speak.