In the preface to his The Study of Dialects K.M. Petyt remarks that "some people seem to regard any derivation from Standard English as substandard; they sincerely believe that the speech of the lower classes is incorrect ...".
The "official" accent heard from RT╔ - that used by newsreaders, continuity personnel and many of its journalists - is not that used by "the lower classes". The station justifies its mispronounciation of Portlaoise as "Portlaois" on the grounds that that is how many inhabitants say it.
If such is the yardstick why not pronounce Nenagh - as many there do - as "Naynagh"? The "clane pleat" rule requires the "refined" ee sound instead of the coarse "rural" ay.
The anglicized form of the Irish surname ╙ h╔ala∅ is pronounced heely in place of the more accurate hayley and Haly/Hall(e)y may once have been the anglicized form of this surname.
However Haly/Hally is generally considered to be the totally different surname ╙ hAilche. Of Norse origin, it is found in Co Waterford, according to de Bhulbh's Sloinnte na h╔ireann/Irish Surnames. ╙ hAille, a sept near Bunratty, Co Clare, is also rendered Halley/Hally, and it is claimed that some Tipperary Hallys are ╙ Maol Cathail, otherwise Mulhall.
Among the pardoned listed in The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns (1522-1603) were Richard Hally, sovereign of Kilmallock (1570); Richard Haly, burgess, and Nicholas Haly, student, both of Cashel (1573); Edmond Halye, merchant of Limerick, and his son David (1577), and mayors and bailiffs of Limerick city between 1588 and 1608 bore this surname.
That same year Katherine Halye and Patrick Boiton, Cashel, were granted a licence "to make and sell aquavitae" in Cashel. A footnote to A Description of Ireland in Anno 1598 says that all the churches in Kilmallock contained sculptured monuments, among which was one to the Halys.
The Co Limerick book of the Civil Survey (1654-58) lists (O)Hally landowners in all of that country's baronies except the three most eastern ones.
They were particularly numerous in Kilmallock and its Liberties, owning a great variety of thatched houses, cabins, small gardens, thatched tenements and pieces of land.
Margaret Hally, widow of Limerick, had land and gardens at Gorteenydriestange and Parkineanvinoige, and prominent was Nicholas Hally of Toureen.
The Co Tipperary book of the Civil Survey shows Halys in the baronies of Lower Ormond and Middlethird. In the latter were Richard and John Haly ('civilian'), with 64 acres apiece in the parish of St Patrick's Rock, Cashel.
A Census of Ireland c.1659 lists this name among the principal Irish names in Cos Waterford, Clare and Tipperary, and in Kilkenny and Limerick cities. Some still retained the 'O'.
Irish Priests in Penal Times informs us of one Paul Haly, suspected popish priest aboard the ship Margery of Dublin, bound to Dublin from Rouen in 1724; in 1744 John Haly was a reputed popish friar in the south suburbs of Cork city and in 1750 John Haly, late of Killerke, Co Tipperary, popish priest, was indicted at Clonmel "for that he contemptuously and unlawfully did endeavour to seduce and pervert Charles Moore a professed Protestant".
It is possible that Edmond Halley (1656-1742), the English astronomer royal and discoverer of Halley's Comet, may have borne an Irish surname. The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames does not list this surname, though persons so-named in Ireland had attained positions of certain importance.
One was on the jury of the Civil Survey inquiry regarding the ownership of the land in the barony of Coshma in Co Limerick; Dame Gertrude Hawley, Doneraile, Co Cork, made her will in 1699; Thomas Hawley was an Archdeacon at St Patrick's Christ Church, Dublin in 1710 and Henry Haly was Lieut-Governor of Kinsale Fort in 1723.
We presume that Hawley is just another spelling of Hally etc., Hawley possible being the "Protestant" spelling. G. Grove's 1725 letter to Lord Kenmare concerned steps "taken to rid both my good Lord and the country of that monster Major Hawley (also Halley). Hopes soon to have him discharged from the regiment he (Grove) commands" (Kenmare Manuscripts).
Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) lists but two of the name - the Rev J. Halley (Reps of), Bridge Street, Dungarvan, with 24 acres, and Lieut-Col RB Hawley, Horse Guards, London, with a further 27 in Co Waterford acres.
Current telephone directories south of the Border contain 69 Hally entries, with 70 for Halley - both mainly in the 05 area. Haly and Hawley appear but twice apiece. Kilmallock derives from C∅ll Mocheall≤g, "the church of Mocheall≤g".