Robert Fourie: Hiberno-English, Holy Communion, Language, South Africa,
Title
Robert Fourie: Hiberno-English, Holy Communion, Language, South Africa,
Subject
Life History: Cork; Ireland; South Africa
Description
Robert talks in detail about growing up in South Africa, and makes some observations about Cork places and people.
Robert (b. 1969) is from a gold-mining town in South Africa. He talks about mining conditions there. He comments that South Africa has many different cultures and languages. He remembers Holy Communion as being a very religious event without the element of being given money. He talks about the kind of food and meals that are eaten by white South Africans.
After gaining a qualification in Speech and Language Therapy, he wanted to travel and he settled in Cork. After returning home he missed Cork and returned. He describes his impression of the city when he first arrived. He observes that Irish people are quite indirect in their conversation and avoid sounding confrontational, and he returns to the topic of how language is employed. He relates a couple of funny Cork conversations which he overheard.
Note; This interview was conducted as part of the Cork 2005 Project
Robert (b. 1969) is from a gold-mining town in South Africa. He talks about mining conditions there. He comments that South Africa has many different cultures and languages. He remembers Holy Communion as being a very religious event without the element of being given money. He talks about the kind of food and meals that are eaten by white South Africans.
After gaining a qualification in Speech and Language Therapy, he wanted to travel and he settled in Cork. After returning home he missed Cork and returned. He describes his impression of the city when he first arrived. He observes that Irish people are quite indirect in their conversation and avoid sounding confrontational, and he returns to the topic of how language is employed. He relates a couple of funny Cork conversations which he overheard.
Note; This interview was conducted as part of the Cork 2005 Project
Date
23 November 2004
Identifier
CFP_SR00348_fourie_2004
Coverage
Cork; Ireland; South Africa; 1990s - 2000s;
Relation
Cork 2005 Collection Catalogue Numbers:
CFP_SR00329_mccarthy_2004;
CFP_SR00330_odriscoll_2004;
CFP_SR00331_claffey_2004;
CFP_SR00332_hanover_2004;
CFP_SR00333_desplanques_2004;
CFP_SR00334_bale_2004;
CFP_SR00335_sheridan_1996;
CFP_SR00336_steiner-scott_2004;
CFP_SR00337_rot_2004;
CFP_SR00338_stafford_2004;
CFP_SR00339_odonoghue_2004;
CFP_SR00340_hawkins_2004;
CFP_SR00341_ocarroll_2004;
CFP_SR00342_ikebuasi_2004;
CFP_SR00343_ogeallabhain_2004;
CFP_SR00344_geaney_2004;
CFP_SR00345_wulff_2004;
CFP_SR00346_abdoulbaneeva_2004;
CFP_SR00347_gunes_2004;
CFP_SR00349_henderson_2004;
CFP_SR00350_valdman_2004;
CFP_SR00351_carmody_2004;
CFP_SR00352_osullivan_2004;
CFP_SR00353_mahknanov_2004;
CFP_SR00354_oflynn_2004;
CFP_SR00355_akhter_2004;
CFP_SR00356_walker_2004;
CFP_SR00357_kelleher_2004;
CFP_SR00358_manresa_2004;
CFP_SR00359_wimpenny_2005;
CFP_SR00360_skotarczak_2005;
CFP_SR00361_vermeulen_2005;
CFP_SR00362_owen_2005;
CFP_SR00363_dsouza_2005;
CFP_SR00364_setter_2005;
CFP_SR00365_obrien_2005;
CFP_SR00366_botan_2005:
CFP_SR00329_mccarthy_2004;
CFP_SR00330_odriscoll_2004;
CFP_SR00331_claffey_2004;
CFP_SR00332_hanover_2004;
CFP_SR00333_desplanques_2004;
CFP_SR00334_bale_2004;
CFP_SR00335_sheridan_1996;
CFP_SR00336_steiner-scott_2004;
CFP_SR00337_rot_2004;
CFP_SR00338_stafford_2004;
CFP_SR00339_odonoghue_2004;
CFP_SR00340_hawkins_2004;
CFP_SR00341_ocarroll_2004;
CFP_SR00342_ikebuasi_2004;
CFP_SR00343_ogeallabhain_2004;
CFP_SR00344_geaney_2004;
CFP_SR00345_wulff_2004;
CFP_SR00346_abdoulbaneeva_2004;
CFP_SR00347_gunes_2004;
CFP_SR00349_henderson_2004;
CFP_SR00350_valdman_2004;
CFP_SR00351_carmody_2004;
CFP_SR00352_osullivan_2004;
CFP_SR00353_mahknanov_2004;
CFP_SR00354_oflynn_2004;
CFP_SR00355_akhter_2004;
CFP_SR00356_walker_2004;
CFP_SR00357_kelleher_2004;
CFP_SR00358_manresa_2004;
CFP_SR00359_wimpenny_2005;
CFP_SR00360_skotarczak_2005;
CFP_SR00361_vermeulen_2005;
CFP_SR00362_owen_2005;
CFP_SR00363_dsouza_2005;
CFP_SR00364_setter_2005;
CFP_SR00365_obrien_2005;
CFP_SR00366_botan_2005:
Published Material:
‘How’s it Goin’, Boy? radio series (six thirty-minute episodes, broadcast 2005 and available on the Cork Folklore Project website)
O'Carroll, Clíona for the Cork Northside Folklore Project (2006) How's it goin', boy? Dublin: Nonsuch Publishing.
Source
Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive
Language
English
Type
Sound
Format
1 .wav file
Interviewee
Interviewer
Duration
81 m 07s
Location
Friar St, Cork City, Ireland
Original Format
MiniDisc
Bit Rate/Frequency
16bit / 44.1kHz
Transcription
The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com
R.F ...em and so that was kind of how I got to be a lecturer in Speech and Hearing Sciences at UCC.
D.H: So Robert going back what was your first impression of Cork?
R.F: My first impression of Cork, I remember driving in, I had a friend drive me from Dublin – she lives in Dublin – and she drove me into Cork. And em I don’t know, I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what Cork would be like, I mean I know there was a match on when I arrived and the place was very dirty (there was litter everywhere) and we came up MacCurtain Street, because my B & B was at MacCurtain Street, and there was a huge amount of litter there, and I remember my friend complaining about the amount of litter, and then I just got a sense, I just thought that Cork looked very interesting: it was very kind of hodge podge, you know, different colours, different textures, different types of buildings, a lot of the buildings I thought were not looked after like you’d think, like monument type buildings very neglected. And em but I was interested in all the different, it was an interesting town, it was very em stimulating because of the different colours, different types of things to see. I noticed that there was only one type of person: it was just Irish people kind of thing: I’m used to much more, lots of different races and colours and people and that, it was just one type of person, it was, white European kind of people, and very few Africans or darker coloured people, but that has changed in the last five years of course, em but I do remember thinking it was very monocultural, and that kind of thing; I also came to Cork in kind of Summer so it was very bright, and I thought, I liked the city, I felt it was interesting. One of the things that really struck me as well about the houses was that they all looked so like on top of each other, and tiny and small, and being used to houses in South Africa where there is planning (the cities are really planned) they are all modern cities – they are not like medieval towns or cities like Cork. So everything is planned and there are long distances, you know and the houses are widely placed, and everybody has got a little plot of land, and all the houses are separate. I’m talking about middle class kind of European people, white people in South Africa. A lot of Africans now that’s also the case – they live like that in South Africa too, but there is that differentiation: African people are often poorer, but not all, of course, but I noticed that when I came to Cork I thought Gosh, the houses are so squashed up nearly like a township, really I think in South Africa, and I’d always be surprised going into a house or a shop: it looked so small on the outside, and when you went in it was much bigger on the like an oblong shaped house, a square house, and most houses in South Africa wouldn’t have a double story, most houses are single storey, and they spread out on the ground rather than going up, so I noticed houses having three or four storeys, and that was very unusual for me, and I was struck by just how everything was squashed up, so em houses are very different, just the way people build, and the way people live as well, and very small spaces for people to bring up very large families in, one just wonders how people with twelve children or even six children would manage on such a squashed up house, and then I said why isn’t there enough space to build, and it’s not like that, it’s just that there is a different culture of building houses and a different way of building and a different way of conceiving of houses. Em later on I mean I started noticing when I spoke to people, local people, em one of the big topics of conversation in Ireland is property, and that everybody wants to have property, everyone wants to have a house, whereas where I come from no one really talks about that, it’s just taken for granted: you might get a house or you might not; you might rent or you might buy, but there is no focus on ownership of property, em although everyone you know a lot of people have, buy houses over in South Africa. Here young people, young people between the ages of twenty and thirty, are you know they’re all talking about they want a house, they want property, they want to own houses, and then you look at the prices of the houses, and like that was one thing that would just astound me at the price of a house: to me 100,000 pounds or punt at the time was just, for a house so small, and so cramped, how could you ever pay that amount of money for a house, and so I never, I still to this day don’t understand this property obsession, and everybody focussing on ownership of houses, and why don’t people just spread the building out more into the country and open it up and have more houses, and you know it’s just very difficult for me to understand. But I suppose there is a history and there is a history of British occupation, and ownership, and people wanting ownership of their land because they were you know disenfranchised and their land taken away from them, so one can understand it from that perspective,
R.F ...em and so that was kind of how I got to be a lecturer in Speech and Hearing Sciences at UCC.
D.H: So Robert going back what was your first impression of Cork?
R.F: My first impression of Cork, I remember driving in, I had a friend drive me from Dublin – she lives in Dublin – and she drove me into Cork. And em I don’t know, I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what Cork would be like, I mean I know there was a match on when I arrived and the place was very dirty (there was litter everywhere) and we came up MacCurtain Street, because my B & B was at MacCurtain Street, and there was a huge amount of litter there, and I remember my friend complaining about the amount of litter, and then I just got a sense, I just thought that Cork looked very interesting: it was very kind of hodge podge, you know, different colours, different textures, different types of buildings, a lot of the buildings I thought were not looked after like you’d think, like monument type buildings very neglected. And em but I was interested in all the different, it was an interesting town, it was very em stimulating because of the different colours, different types of things to see. I noticed that there was only one type of person: it was just Irish people kind of thing: I’m used to much more, lots of different races and colours and people and that, it was just one type of person, it was, white European kind of people, and very few Africans or darker coloured people, but that has changed in the last five years of course, em but I do remember thinking it was very monocultural, and that kind of thing; I also came to Cork in kind of Summer so it was very bright, and I thought, I liked the city, I felt it was interesting. One of the things that really struck me as well about the houses was that they all looked so like on top of each other, and tiny and small, and being used to houses in South Africa where there is planning (the cities are really planned) they are all modern cities – they are not like medieval towns or cities like Cork. So everything is planned and there are long distances, you know and the houses are widely placed, and everybody has got a little plot of land, and all the houses are separate. I’m talking about middle class kind of European people, white people in South Africa. A lot of Africans now that’s also the case – they live like that in South Africa too, but there is that differentiation: African people are often poorer, but not all, of course, but I noticed that when I came to Cork I thought Gosh, the houses are so squashed up nearly like a township, really I think in South Africa, and I’d always be surprised going into a house or a shop: it looked so small on the outside, and when you went in it was much bigger on the like an oblong shaped house, a square house, and most houses in South Africa wouldn’t have a double story, most houses are single storey, and they spread out on the ground rather than going up, so I noticed houses having three or four storeys, and that was very unusual for me, and I was struck by just how everything was squashed up, so em houses are very different, just the way people build, and the way people live as well, and very small spaces for people to bring up very large families in, one just wonders how people with twelve children or even six children would manage on such a squashed up house, and then I said why isn’t there enough space to build, and it’s not like that, it’s just that there is a different culture of building houses and a different way of building and a different way of conceiving of houses. Em later on I mean I started noticing when I spoke to people, local people, em one of the big topics of conversation in Ireland is property, and that everybody wants to have property, everyone wants to have a house, whereas where I come from no one really talks about that, it’s just taken for granted: you might get a house or you might not; you might rent or you might buy, but there is no focus on ownership of property, em although everyone you know a lot of people have, buy houses over in South Africa. Here young people, young people between the ages of twenty and thirty, are you know they’re all talking about they want a house, they want property, they want to own houses, and then you look at the prices of the houses, and like that was one thing that would just astound me at the price of a house: to me 100,000 pounds or punt at the time was just, for a house so small, and so cramped, how could you ever pay that amount of money for a house, and so I never, I still to this day don’t understand this property obsession, and everybody focussing on ownership of houses, and why don’t people just spread the building out more into the country and open it up and have more houses, and you know it’s just very difficult for me to understand. But I suppose there is a history and there is a history of British occupation, and ownership, and people wanting ownership of their land because they were you know disenfranchised and their land taken away from them, so one can understand it from that perspective,
Collection
Citation
Cork Folklore Project, “Robert Fourie: Hiberno-English, Holy Communion, Language, South Africa,,” accessed April 24, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/35.