Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris - Mulvaney

Mulvaney

Private Terence Mulvaney (whose surname should be pronounced Mulvanny) is the leader of the three. He is an Irishman: his speech is distinguished by certain obvious dialect characteristics, even if the dialect is to some extent 'stage Irish'. His 't's and 'd's are often aspirated (indicated by a following 'h', as in 'dhrinkin''); the strength of his pronunciation of 'wh-' is often indicated by preceding it with 'f' ("fwhat" for 'what'); his 's' is often followed by an 'h' (as in 'pershuade' - or is this his drink talking?); the different quality of his vowels from the Received Pronunciation of his day is indicated by variant spellings. For example,

Thin I became a man, an' the divil of a man I was fifteen years ago. They called me Black Mulvaney in thim days, an', begad, I tuk a woman's eye. I did that! Ortheris, ye scrub, fwhat are ye sniggerin' at? Do you misdoubt me?

This shows not only the spelling of his speech, but indicates the articulate fluency with which he speaks (as an Irishman, of course, he has 'the gift of the gab') and also demonstrates, if read aloud, Kipling's feeling for the rhythms and 'swing' of Irish English. It also has the word 'misdoubt', which is more local than Standard English.

Mulvaney is also representative of the stereotypical Irishman in that he drinks, and has lost all his good conduct pay and badges; but he is less typical in that he is an exemplary soldier in what he (and Kipling) thinks is important: he may be regularly Confined to Barracks for his misdemeanours (mostly for being drunk and disorderly) - he thinks this is fair enough - but he supports army traditions ('The Three Musketeers' shows him defending the tradition of Thursday half day working, more successfully that the rest of the regiment) and resents some "cruel bad treatment" by the Colonel in The God from the Machine: "Me that have saved the repitation av a ten times better man than him".

"he was the tallest man in the regiment" (The God from the Machine)