Faith and begorrah, a recent survey found that women now think the Irish accent is the world’s sexiest.

The reigning champion, French, dropped to fourth. American came in 10th, respectable enough, but you have to wonder which version of American that was — the blandified accent favored by television news reporters, perhaps?

Really now, if you’re talking about the soft, Southern accent of the blonde I knew in school who was from Atlanta, then I can understand. But if you’re talking the Rosie Perez, nasal, New York accent, or the straight from the cotton field accent of some Texans I know, then you’d have to be a native or impaired to say, “Wow, that turns me on.”

Being of Irish extraction — my paternal grandfather immigrated through Ellis Island sometime after the turn of the century — I’m thrilled to hear the news.

Though when I trot out my faux Irish accent, it doesn’t seem to have much effect.

One woman I worked with several years back sneered at my Irish accent. She’d spent a summer abroad in England during college and fancied herself an expert on what accents sounded authentic.

I never paid much attention to her, though, because whenever she tried to fake an accent, it sounded like some West Texas farm girl trying to fake an accent. She didn’t grasp that “git off own the exit ray-amp” doesn’t come off sounding particularly British.

I suspect the same is true of the Irish accent. Women who think the accent is sexy are probably thinking about bad boy Colin Farrell, not one of the country people a former co-worker ran into while on a tour of the ancestral home.

She told me they were lovely, friendly people, but she wasn’t sure they were even speaking English.

Second in the poll, which surveyed 5,000 international women, was Italian, which being a Romance language, already has the reputation, even though the key here that is a Roman-based, that is to say, Latin language.

Of course we’ve managed to associate Latin with love — hence Latin lover — but exactly how those two things came to be connected is for a linguist to explain.

The Scottish accent came in third.

Again, this probably is because of women thinking about Sean Connery, who even though he’s a half a millennium old, still sets female hearts aflutter, even pulling off a love scene in a movie with Catherine Zeta-Jones a few years back.

Granted, Zeta-Jones married Michael Douglas, whose hound-dog face makes him look older than Connery, but keep in mind this was a work of fiction.

Any ancient Scotsman who didn’t play James Bond and who didn’t have a gazillion dollars in the bank probably wouldn’t be hooking up with a raven-haired beauty in real life.

Besides, I heard recently that a London-based translation firm placed an ad in Glasgow newspapers seeking translators who can help visiting businessmen understand English as it is spoken in that fair city.

Seems the translation firm’s owner is a Lithuanian who has lived in Britain for a number of years and speaks perfect English, but when she traveled to Glasgow, she couldn’t make heads or tails out of Glaswegian English.

Now what would have happened if Connery had been from Glasgow instead of Edinburgh? Or worse, if he’s been born in Edinburg, Texas?

Bond would have faced the laser and said, “D’ja spect me ta tawk?” and Goldfinger would have replied, “No, Mr. Bond, I ... What did you say?”

Sure, and that woulda spoilt ta film.

Anything? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Michael O’Connor may be contacted at editor@trcle.com. You can comment on this or any of our stories at cleburnetimesreview.com.