Irish English in Cork City

Cork City is Ireland's second-largest city, with a metropolitan population approaching 418,000 (2016 census). As with many other Irish cities and towns, Cork City has a varied history of settlement and language use, with multilingual influences dating from the period of monastic settlement. Visitors to the modern city will hear many different ways of speaking. Some differences are associated with specific parts of the city or are rooted in conservative regional patterns. Others reflect recent supraregional norms and, increasingly, recent international immigration. As with any linguistic community, most speakers command a range of registers and vary their speech according to context and their own sense of identity. This chapter situates Cork City English in the context of Irish English studies, and brings our understanding of some of the city's linguistic characteristics up to date by presenting newly collected data from families based in different parts of the city.