It’s been an odd week for Northern Irish accents.

First Coronation Street made a joke about a Belfast voice not being “smooth”. Then a Mail on Sunday reviewer admitted she resorted to using subtitles while watching Troubles-inspired drama Trespasses because the accents were “mighty”.

Meanwhile, two of the show’s stars, Gillian Anderson and Tom Cullen, have been apologising in interviews for struggling with the NI dialect, with Cullen earnestly explaining that he listened to Jamie Dornan’s Desert Island Discs on repeat in an attempt to get it right (although I’m not convinced it helped).

All of this raises a familiar question: why is the Northern Irish accent still being treated as a novelty?

Sophie Clarke: Northern Irish accents aren’t exotic or incomprehensible and it’s time people stopped pretending they are

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