It's gems like this that make me wish I hadn't left Ireland: humorous representations of Irish English and their role in diasporic identities

In this chapter, we discuss the role of humorous texts in bringing to our attention aspects of perceived identities that have resonance at local, regional and national levels in Ireland, and beyond. In doing so, we assert the rich potential of these texts to bring into the foreground evidence of the sorts of sociocultural understandings required for humour to operate, and emphasise the potential of performative data to enhance our awareness of language practices around ideologies and identities (Moriarty 2011: 550). Humour is a complex phenomenon in social life more generally, and a pragmatically powerful and polyvalent resource in interaction more specifically (Vaughan and Clancy 2011). We present and analyse extracts from a series of animated cartoons, Martin’s Life, and build on our previous research which focuses on representations of voices within the Irish (English) mediascape (Vaughan and Moriarty 2018). What these representations can offer in terms of insights into conceptions of ‘Irishness’ vis-àvis the constellation of semiotic resources invoked to index aspects of identities is explored. The locus of humour in these texts, and the use of marked phonological, lexical, pragmatic, and other discursive features, in combination with other semiotic modes (Bateman 2008), questions can be asked and answers essayed on the ways in which these are used to perform and hence provide a visible indexing of (perceived) sociocultural traits and identities. The response of the audience is a crucial dimension in our analysis, and we include discussion of You Tube comments beneath the videos as an example of a key contemporary “reflexive arena” where “the use of heterogeneous stylistic resources, context-sensitive meanings, and conflicting ideologies...can be examined critically” (Bauman and Briggs 1990: 60) in that the performances can be commented upon, ratified and contested within these discursive spaces. We take up the ethnolinguistic approach to identity exemplified in Atkinson and Kelly-Holmes (2011), and similarly explore how ‘comedy constructs the audience in relation to identity and language and in particular whether the messages of the comedy appear to subvert or legitimise dominant beliefs and practice as regards identity and language ownership in Ireland’ (p. 251), albeit from the point of view of Irish English identities, rather than ownership and control of the Irish language in Ireland.