While we Irish are renowned for having the ‘gift of the gab’, a new survey reveals that we are not all equal in our way with words. The poll of more than 1,000 people from across the country, carried out by leading lighter manufacturer BIC, found that Corkonians (28%) come out on top as the country’s best talkers, followed closely by Dubliners (23%) and their Kerry neighbours (21%).
However, the survey which is part of BIC’s ‘Sparking Conversations’ campaign, reveals that owning the crown of ‘best talker’ doesn’t necessarily mean possessing the most soothing of dialects.
Cork managed to come in at second place (18%), while Donegal emerged a clear favourite with 31% of the vote. Dublin (17%) came in third placed followed by Kerry with a 13% share.
What are we talking about?
With four seasons in a day very much the standard climate, it’s unsurprising that ‘the weather’ dominated as Ireland’s most popular topic of conversation with a massive 82% of the votes.
Travel (33%) and Sport (23%) completed the top three, while 6 out of 10 consider the 2016 General Election the most popular topic of conversation of the year so far, ranking ahead of the 1916 centenary (45%) and the upcoming European Football Championships (34%).
Who does talkin’?
The survey also reveals that when it comes to men and women, women come out on top as better talkers with consensus among 3 out of 4 (76%) Irish adults and almost equal agreement from both men (73%) and women (77%).
That said, host of the Late Late Show Ryan Tubridy swept up in the category of ‘Ireland’s best Talker’ with 20% of the Irish public nominating Tubs as their favourite chatty man.
He was closely followed by RTE colleagues Miriam O’Callaghan (14%) and Marian Finucane (11%), while Today FM’s Ian Dempsey completed the top three with an 11% share of the public vote.
Other survey findings include:
- Brendan Gleeson (22%), Roy Keane (13%) and Conor McGregor (11%) are considered the Irish celebrities that members of the public would most like to have a chat with.
- “Ah here!” (33%), “Sure look” (30%) and “Take it handy” (25%) are ranked as the most popular ‘Irishisms, though “Well” proved most popular amongst the Munster Population
- The top three secrets to the art of conversation, according to Irish men and women are confidence (66%), a sense of humour (55%) and good eye contact (47%) with body language (30%) and charm (29%) also highly important to a great exchange.
- More than half (54%) think a person can feel a spark within a few minutes of meeting a love interest for the first time while 23% feel it takes a few hours to feel a spark and equally 23% feel it takes more than one meeting to know you’ve been hit by cupid’s arrow.
- The break-up conversation is cited the most difficult conversation to have with someone, with over a third (38%) of the votes followed by the job interview (33%).
