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I've lived in Ireland for a decade in Dublin and outside Co. Dublin. I've noticed that many of the accents sound similar with the exception of the South Dublin accent. It sounds entirely different from the rest of accents in Dublin and around the country.
I read somewhere that the accent was influenced by English settlers during the English occupation of Ireland when Dublin was known as 'the Pale'.
Upper-middle class
The Dublin D4 post code area is best described as Upper-middle class.
This week, the Dublin Horse Show has brought much-needed gaiety to an area that is going through troubled times. Dublin 4, the pulsing heart of Boomtown Ireland and the only Irish post code that became a term of derision, will never be poverty-stricken.
The diplomats and lawyers who inhabit its tree-lined avenues will always ensure that it remains a by-word of affluence, but there is no doubt it has lost some of its lustre.
D4 accent
According to Professor Dolan speaking to the Independent ie, this is an accent which originated in the D4 post code area in response to trying to get away from perceived poverty and failure.
The D4 accent may have originated in the fashionable Dublin 4 postal district, however, it is now encountered around the country.
Borrowing from Home Counties British English and American English, it is distinctive for its distorted vowels, so that "car park" becomes "corpork", a liberal dousing of the quotative "like" or "loike" and what is known as the high-rising terminal whereby statements sound like questions.
"People who use it want to get away from Irish culture as much as possible because they associate it with poverty and failure. They are trying to sound like the Home Counties," he said.
Recent change
Raymond Hickey has written a book on this very subject and according to Raymond this change in accent is rapid and recent.
Dublin English, by Raymond Hickey
The rapid change of Dublin English is seen as a correlate to the many social and economic developments which have occurred in recent years.
Where did the South Dublin/“D4” accent come from?
It comes from the Dublin D4 post code area. According to professors and book writers it is a recent phenomenon and does not appear directly connected to "the pale".
