Who are the Basque people?

Why do people in the Basque Country think that the purest English is spoken in Ireland?

• I live and teach in the Basque Country. I hear it all the time and multiple people here have told me that non-native teachers tell them to study English in Ireland as they claim "it's the purest". I always figured it was promoted because of the independence movements in both countries.

• Answer:

  I have also taught English abroad, and I'd suggest some answers. Firstly, people abroad romanticise Ireland - the noble oppressed, producing linguistic beauty in the face of inhuman oppressors, and all that. It's a nice story, even if it's rubbish and hasn't been true for a hundred years or so (in which time, different people in the Republic of Ireland have done quite a good job of oppressing each other!). Such a rhetoric particularly appeals in the Basque country, with their own separatist and linguistic 'issues', but I've also seen it work in Germany, France and the USA. Secondly, the Irish accent is the root of the American accent in many respects, so it also offers a flash of recognition, while being sufficiently different to that 'Behemoth' too. Finally, lots of British people rate it too - they say they find it sexy. No idea why that is... These are just speculations.