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Liutenant O'Reilley didn't have an accent, indicating he was an American of Irish decent, not quite the same thing as Scotty with his Scottish accent,or Chekov with his Russian accent.

Now that I think of it there was nobody with an English accent. Picard was supposedly French but had a New English accent.

Marcus on Babylon 5 had a pretty strong English accent. He was a great character too.

I don't think the presence of an accent is a fair qualifier for representation though. Many accents are very difficult for the average American to understand, and that alone would steer TV producers away from casting someone with one. After having to suffer through a college math professor with an indecipherable Korean accent for a full semester, believe me, I would very quickly turn off a show that made me go through that again. But I don't think Lieutenant Kim on Voyager doesn't count as a Korean because he didn't have an accent. Honestly, if accent is what mattered I would've pegged Bashir on DS9 as primarily British. I forget what African country he's actually from but I know it would never have been my guess ;)

O'Reilley was very clearly Irish. He in fact made a very big deal of his Irish heritage and was very proud of it. I do think he counts. It's true he wasn't really a major character - but at least he was acknowledged to exist :)

Actually, a bit of trivia - the Security Officer on ST:TNG was in fact supposed to be of Spanish descent. Last name Rodriguez I think. They eventually replaced the character with Tasha Yar (and we all know how well -that- turned out - yeuucccch). What makes that more interesting though is that the original Spanish security officer character was the role that Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) originally auditioned for! They just decided to cast her as an alien empath instead (shrug).

I concede completely on the potato farmer issue. You're right, it can definetly be assumed they were representing the Irish, and you're right, it was a very pretty condescending portrayal.

Qwinn

BTW, what was O'Brien on DS9? Wasn't he Irish?

Qwinn