So _s_ before long _u_ is sounded _sh_: Dan Kiely, a well-to-do young farmer, told the people of our neighbourhood that he was now looking out for a wife that would _shoot_ him. This pronunciation is however still sometimes heard in words of correct English, as in _sure_.
There are some consonants of the Irish language which when they come together do not coalesce in sound, as they would in an English word, so that when they are uttered a very short obscure vowel sound is heard between them: and a native Irish speaker cannot avoid this. By a sort of hereditary custom this peculiarity finds its way into our pronunciation of English. Thus _firm_ is sounded in Ireland _ferrum_--two distinct syllables: 'that bird is looking for a _wurrum_.' _Form_ (a seat) we call a _furrum_.
'His sire he'd seek no more nor descend to Mammon's shore, Nor venture on the tyrant's dire _alaa-rums_, But daily place his care on that emblematic fair, Till he'd barter coronations for her _chaa-rums_.'
_Herb_ is sounded _errub_: and we make two syllables of the name Charles [Char-less]. At the time of the Bulgarian massacres, I knew a Dublin doctor, a Tipperary man, who felt very strongly on the subject and was constantly talking about the poor _Bullugarians_.
In the County Monaghan and indeed elsewhere { 97} in Ireland, _us_ is sounded _huz_, which might seem a Cockney vulgarism, but I think it is not. In Roscommon and in the Munster counties a thong is called a _fong_.
_Chaw_ for _chew_, _oncet_ [wonst] for _once_, _twiced_ for _twice_, and _heighth_, _sighth_, for _height_, _sight_, which are common in Ireland, are all old English survivals. Thus in the 'Faerie Queene' (Bk. I., Canto IV., XXX.):--
'And next to him malicious Envy rode Upon a ravenous wolfe and still did _chaw_ Between his cankred teeth a venomous tode.'
_Chaw_ is also much used in America. '_Onst_ for once, is in the Chester Plays' (Lowell); and _highth_ for _height_ is found all through 'Paradise Lost.' So also we have _drooth_ for _drought_:--
'Like other historians I'll stick to the truth While I sing of the monarch who died of the _drooth_.'
_Joist_ is sounded _joice_ in Limerick; and _catch_ is everywhere pronounced _ketch_.
The word _hither_ is pronounced in Ireland _hether_, which is the correct old English usage, but long since abandoned in England. Thus in a State Paper of 1598, we read that two captains returned _hether_: and in Spenser's 'View,' he mentions a 'colony [sent] _hether_ out of Spaine.'