Hi im leon and im a russian jew that lives in israel, and i have nothing to do with irish people, but, from what i know (from books movies and irish pubs) the irish culture is one of the greratest and i like it so much that i want to develop an irish accent when using my english..
(of course visiting ireland after the army is also included in my "to do" list"

now im a bit confused, i understand that there is the traditional irish and the english-irish (correct me if im wrong) i want to learn the english-irish right now (you know like the differences in the words aye and yes, pub and toddle etc...)
of cource an irish accent is a must :)

A tourist stops an older gentleman on a New York City street and asks "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" The old man replies "Practice! Practice! Practice!" So... rent DVDs of contemporary Irish films and repeat after. :-) The Committments is good.

The Commitments would be heavy on the Dub accent; Waking Ned might be a better choice.

Consider listening to the streaming audio from RTE -- news programmes, chat shows, etc. It's available free over the internet.

Whatever you do, don't model your speech after the people in the movie Darby O'Gill.

Please whatever you do ,Don't learn the Tom Cruise "Irish" accent.as in "Far and Away " There is no such accent in the world it is "Hollywood fake Irish" so the masses in the USA can understand.They should listen to the people from Northern Ireland speaking without subtitles and they wouldn't have a clue.As such there is no such thing as an Irish accent , the language spoken throughout the British Isles is regional/provincial.I have lived in Australia and the accent does not vary vey much throughout the continent but over here with our ancient culture/ traditions there are pronounced differences in accents every 50-60kms apart.
People in east Galway and people in Offaly have very different accents even though they are within 70kms of each other.Weird but it shows you that we in these small islands are tribal and that is how we spread out to populate the whole country.

Failte (welcome) dear Leon! I'm Jewish and half Israeli myself! I hear Russian people are stunning at learning foreign languages! I wish you well in your studies! Niamh ;.).

I wouldn't normally say this to all of you, but all the kind advice has given me courage. For my accent I always listen to RTE online in order to continually refine it. I also like watching movies but as mentioned above those can be problematic depending on the situation in which they were made and attention to authenticity.

watch star trek and listen to colm meaney ;-)

Niamh83 you just solved my biggest question about the world, are there irish jews? :)
i wonder now are there chinies jews :P

anyway back to the topic, thanks for the help everyone i will take those advices inmind, i got a question about my favorite movie "the boondock saints" is this irish enough?
couse i dont mind witching the movie hundred more times and practise my irish acording to it..

It is not that many years (late 80's to early 90's) since Isreal had an Irish President. Chiam Herzog was a Dubliner who emigrated to Isreal. I believe I have heard that his father was a rabbi.

And back in the 50's, 60's, the Lord Mayor of Dublin was a Jew, Robert Briscoe.

And his son was a TD. I grew up 100 m from a large synagogue in Dublin. In an area wheere about 1/3 of teh population were jewish.

A quick google found this: http://www.shalomireland.com/

Worst Irish accents ever:

Ordinary Decent Criminal

It might be a good film if I didn't cringe everytime someone spoke. Colin Farrell was the only one I could stand...

"Niamh83 you just solved my biggest question about the world, are there irish jews? :) "

ah, you forget Moses Ritooraliay

http://www.irishsongs.com/lyrics.php?Action=view&Song_id=245

I wonder if the Briscoe reference in that song is a mention of Robert Briscoe above

Probably.

Google came up with this

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=116235&contrassID=3&s ubContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

He was a big man in Fianna Fáil.

At one time, there were 3 Jewish TDs (from a population of about 1500) - Ben Briscoe (Fianna Fáil), Alan Shatter (Fine Gael) and Mervyn Taylor (Labour)

http://accent.gmu.edu/

You can find some recordings there. I remember visiting even a better site similar to that with many more recordings … but I can't seem to find the URL. I'll get back to you if I can. Good luck!

anyone ever see the movie "this is/was my father" twas a good movie, just wounering if the accents were fake in that as well

I'll tell you a secret Leon... but don't tell anyone... I'm not Irish. This is between you and me yeah, make sure no one else on these boards learn about that :.) ! But I feel Irish inside, and self define as such. I guess that MAKES me Irish. As you could be on a few years, once you have refined your accent thanks to RTE! :.).

I know a story that is GENUINE, it's my friend from Belfast told me: he had a Jewish friend in Belfast who invited him to the synagogue there. There aren't many Jews left there, the Jews who live there are ageing, simply, and the whole community might die off. Most of the Belfast Jews are elderly people apparently. there's only one young couple has a small son, only a baby.

Anyway, my friend told me he went to the synagogue and there was this lady in the synagogue who was the rabbi's daughter. Apparently she has flaming red hair and the best of Irish accents! Her family were Hungarian Jews who were really poor in Hungary and wanted to emigrate to the US. As they heard the Irish had a long history of emigration to the US too, they decided to go to Ireland as they figured out going to the US from Ireland might be easier than from Hungary. Well, they got "stuck" in Ireland as it were and this man now is (or used to be, I'm not sure how old this story is) the Rabbi of Belfast's synagogue! How RANDOM is that now????

To answer your question there are Jews in Ireland. But not many. If I manage to self define as Irish and "mix" with Irish people enough, I might become an Irish Jew too!!!! :.).

I've got a really similar dirty little secret, shush, don't tell.

Niamh83

yea, and so must the other 82 niamhs before you. Did you juet pick it for safety sake, or did you find that 82 previous 8but not posting) peopel had sigen up with the same name?