I am sure I have heard MacColl singing in an Irish accent.

My problem is with MacColl's speaking voice, as exemplified on the tapes of the critics group and on the 'Song Carriers'. He sounds like somebody who took elocution lessons from a member of the upper class mid 20th century, a sort of almost but not quite 'BBC English', the sort in which a 'creche' is a car accident in Knightsbridge. He certainly did not learn to speak like that on the streets of Salford. 'Seeoot' not suit etc.

Yet this was an era in which people were beginning to object to the marginalisation of Northern accents and voices. But MacColl chose to go with the tones of the establishment.