Mr. Dooley's Brogue:The Literary Dialect of Finley Peter Dunne

Abstract

Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley was once one of America’s most popular humorous characters. Dunne’s elaborate eye dialect tends to put off contemporary readers, but the Dooley essays lose much of their power and literary "flavor" when they are transcribed into standard English spelling. This study relates Dunne’s respelling system to the pronunciation of Anglo-Irish and shows that Dunne’s eye dialect is intended to represent many phonological features of English as it is spoken in Ireland, while avoiding other features whose inclusion would threaten readability. The authenticity of Mr. Dooley’s dialect adds to the credibility of the character by giving the reader the illusion that he is listening to a real human voice belonging to a real member of a specific, historic Irish-American community.