Sorry, I can't help but wish you well. It is hard to get speech patterns right and reproduce 1950s Irish without sounding too "shamrocky".

Maeve Binchy's book "Circle of Friends " is set in the 1950s so perhaps if you read that and other similar books you would get some idea.

I have been trying to recall what an Irish landlady we stayed with when I was a child in the mid-forties used to say. I know she called movies "Films" and pronounced it fillums.

Where in Ireland do your characters live? That makes a difference and also if they are Roman Catholic they would exclaim "Holy Mother of God" where it wouldn't be usual for Protestants to say that.

i have noticed in Binchy books that people are "delighted" and say "Grand" and "mad" where in England at that time it would be "pleased" and "Good" and wouldn't refer to a mental state, their own or anyone elses!

I agree with Annpan, it would be very difficult to reproduce the way of speech without firsthand knowledge of the cadences and speech patterns, especially from sixty plus years ago.There is nothing worse than 'cod' Irish, with all that 'Top o' the morning's' or 'Bejazus's'

Also the area of Ireland will make an enormous difference. Accents and expressions are quite marked between, say, County Tyrone and Wexford and those heard in the towns or 'up the mountain' and the countryside in general, or whether the speaker is rich, poor or 'educated'.

You could try going to 'youtube' and listening to some clips from both Father Ted a very funny TV series set on a remote island off the West coast or Mrs Brown's Boys more 'slap-stick' humour but very very rude . . . so have your smelling salts ready.

Actually, a minor character in my writing is a fictitious Earl of Cork and would currently place around sixty years old (thus 1950 style).

dbarron, if your character is an Irish aristocrat I doubt very much that he would speak with a brogue, unless he had been brought up in some mouldering castle far from his own family, had never mixed with his peers or gone to school, been married etc. He 'speech patterns' would be very similar to those of the English aristocracy.

By the way there is already a member of the Irish peerage of that name; the Earl of Cork Born in 1945, John Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan who inherited the title in 2003. He attend Harrow School, then the Royal Naval College Dartmouth and became a commodore in the Royal Navy and now runs his estates. It might be better to chose a 'made up' name!

Yes, I know..but remember...all resemblances to any existing person, institutions, etc...is strictly imaginary and this is a work of pure fantasty. :)

In my fantasy world, I still have very similar Earth-like conventions. I am not actually patterning off anyone, but I in fact, am using the name Richard Boyle as the character. You would call it a variant of Earth, in which things are happened somewhat differently.

Yes, but back to the original question...how to find verbage with verisimilitude?

You know the old saying . . . write about that with which you are familiar.

Is it absolutely necessary for your book to have in it an Irish character of noble-birth especially one dwelling in some sort of parallel universe?

If he must be an Irish nob listen to how the English aristocracy speak . . . perhaps not Prince Harry (becoming too Estuary English) but try Prince Philip; lots of fruity quarter-deck language to play with.

No more can I suggest, but good luck with the venture and avoid verbiage . . .

I think so....this character is minor be recurrent and rather important that he be of another nationality. It helps with dialogue to differentiate the character's speech...and you might say add regional flavor.

This is the third (and hopefully final) rewrite...but quite drastic changes, and this was one I hoped to do.