The variable /ai/ in Irish English

A conservative pronunciation of /ai/ in Dublin is maintained in lower-class speech as  whereas the supraregional variety of the south has for /ai/ a diphthong which has a low mid or low front starting point, i.e., either [aI] or [æi]. For fashionable Dubliners the [aI, æI] pronunciations sufficiently delimit them from local Dublin English. But increasingly a back starting point came to be used with this diphthong. This retracted starting point is particularly noticeable before /r/ so that the name of the country is realized as  rather than .