ABSTRACT
I begin to hear the sound that belongs to Cork more than do the Bells of Shandon even—the chime of the Cork sentence. “D’ye see thon wee cuttie wi’ the weans?” a man in Derry had said to me when I had asked him the way, pointing out a girl with children. It stayed in my memory as the typical Northern sentence, spoken as if the man wanted to keep his lips tightly shut. “I wonder in the world would you give me a little kiss?” A girl speaking to a child she is minding says it; it stays with me as the typical Cork sentence, spoken on a rising stress, the last word coming like a bursting bud. In the railway-carriage I am in all are speaking with this rising inflection.
