I have been working several years on writing a journal/document of my Irish grandparents who arrived in the United States in the 1890's. A local college has asked me to write a short play taken from these journals...about my grandparents' early years in America and their marriage.

Question: I would like the actors to speak with a "taste" of the accent of my grandparents, the accent of Irish people speaking American English. I can recall a little bit about how my grandparents sounded, but I don't trust myself to remember everything as I knew them when I was a very young child. My challenge, therefore, is to write sections of the script phonetically, and, also, injecting special phrases that would have been unique to Irish immigrants to America. I have searched the web looking for an "Irish dialictizer", but have NOT found it!! Can you guide me to the best resources?

Dear Colleen:

A tiny bit of help may be the only two words I know spoken by my greatgrandparents in 1890s Minnesota:
omadon, meaning "silly little fool", a tender expression, and musha, meaning "wonders!", an expression of surprise. /transliteration roughly OHmadon and mOOsha/according to my father's recollection. Check Gaelic spellings.
Best to you, 4th generation from Wexford Co.

Colleen,
Sorry that this is a late response. I really think they would have spoke english the same way they did back in Ireland, except in reference to places, and things only found where they emigrated to. For examples on how the irish people spoke at that time stck to your irish authors who wrote about that time period. WALTER MACKEN, J.M.SYNGE, SEAN O'CASEY, LIAM O'FLAHERTY, etc. I would think you'd have to be area specific for the mode of discourse