On the mid-Atlantic wavelength

Jimmy Crowley sings the praises of the Cork accent, and wonders why the city's radio stations seem keen to play it down.

Steve Haze's peppery American tones are seeping into the shops, the cafés and the buses of my city like nerve gas. I fumble in my bag for my earmuffs; I can feel my blood pressure soar. There's a traditional barbershop on the quays, I remember. I wander in for a number three and a welcome respite. But Hayes is there before me, ever haunting me: the ubiquitous spiel of "Cork's perfect music mix", 96fm.

There's an ad break and it's even worse: one for Flor Griffin Electrical, in Bandon, attacks you with an imperious cascade of foreign diphthongs. I glower at the barber, shake my fist at the radio. As I step back into the sunshine the sound of the bells of Shandon assuages my terrorised nerves like a balmy wave on a torrid day.

This is surely my worst nightmare, something I've always dreaded: this new way of speaking is contorting reality - softening our alveolars, fracturing our fricatives - in a mad swoop to get rid of what is still distinctive in our community.

Local radio does a great disservice to Cork, of all places. More than most cities, according to the anthropologist Mick Moloney, it retains marked inflections of its industrial past in its dialect, its humour and its wordplay. I have good reason to show concern, having spent 30 years trawling the city's lanes, quays and terraces in search of the urban ballad, that social record that represents our people better than reams of history books.

Why are you so Yankocentric, why are you ashamed of the Cork accent, I ask 96fm. "Cork people are voting with their ears and saying 96fm is what we're about," says Ronan McManamy, the station's commercial director, adding that at any time of the day 50,000 people are listening to the station.

When I ask if its sound reflects the natural inflection and soul of the people it broadcasts to, he cites The Opinion Line, Neil Prenderville's morning show, as "having all those things I'm looking for". Prenderville commands three peak hours: people call in and pour out their hearts; Corkonians set the agenda.

I agree that the show has many merits, but, I say, why not three or four Prendervilles? Why must we dumb down for the rest of the day? None of my friends can listen to more than five minutes of 96fm.

I also tell McManamy that some of Cork's professional singers seem to be deliberately kept below the radar by 96fm, which apparently looks on them as quaint troubadours who have somehow been surviving without it and are therefore beyond its reach.

I suggest a day-long experiment. Begin the station's output with a gramophone circle: old people talking about their memories of Jack Doyle coming in on the White Star Line, about the night Caruso got sick and some fellow from Blackpool sang the role of Radames in Aida for him at the opera house, about other urban legends. Then we could have an hour with the new Corkonians: emigrants from Romania coming in to the studio with their bouzoukis and shaky quarter-tones, sharing the richness of their music with their neighbours. McManamy's eyebrows begin to quiver.

You could do an amazing show on children's street games, I suggest. I'd be happy to present a two-hour folk show that would focus on the different areas of the ballad tradition. McManamy's eyes roll in horror. "We cover 100 local games a year," he tells me, gracious in his praise for the sports coverage of RTÉ's sadly missed Cork service. "And it's expensive," he adds. "And we did flag the Langer song."

I pack my recorder and head for RedFM, 96fm's local rival. Matt Dempsey, the station's music director, is also an easy man to talk to. Its remit is for the 15-to-35 age group, he says, the station having secured a youth licence from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.

I never knew such a licence existed, I say. Aren't we over-50s local too? Why are RedFM's jingles broadcast in American and English accents? "Ah, it's hard to find a good strong accent that can carry it," he says.

What is the problem with our lovely undulating accent, I ask in alarm, mentioning the confidence with which Clare FM and Radio Kerry sing their ads and present themselves in their native tongues. Dempsey keeps referring to "a slicker sound" and "market research" telling them what the people want. But they want it because that is all they are given, I say. Again I suggest my ideas for real community radio. Dempsey's eyes roll even more than McManamy's.

At least RedFM's two-hour Irish-language chart show is very popular with younger listeners; the station also broadcasts bulletins in Irish on gigs and events at least four times a day.

"The real world is not a dance floor," I remind him. "Do you ever listen to Raidió na Gaeltachta? People selling Toyota Starlets, stray dogs causing a nuisance, folks being waked and buried; surely local radio should provide a service which acknowledges the real world."

But I know all the answers to those questions, I say to myself as I drive home. I switch to Radio Kerry. In an accent as sweet as a mountain stream Máire Begley introduces a song about Crusher Casey, the world-famous wrestler from Sneem. That's what it's all about.