--- title: "Man’s Cancer Caused “Uncontrollable” Irish Accent, Doctors Say" description: "In a truly bizarre case, doctors have documented for the first time ever a man developing a random Irish accent after getting prostate cancer." date: "2023-02-10" modified: "2023-02-10" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/cancer-irish-accent" categories: - "Cancer" - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" tags: - "cancer" - "neurological disorder" - "prostate cancer" - "side effects" --- # Man’s Cancer Caused “Uncontrollable” Irish Accent, Doctors Say ![In a truly bizarre case, doctors have documented for the first time ever a man developing a random Irish accent after getting prostate cancer.]() *\Image: Dimitrios Kambouris via Getty / Futurism\* In a truly bizarre case, doctors have documented for the first time a man who appears to have developed a random Irish accent after getting prostate cancer — a disease that eventually killed him. As a recent paper [in the journal *BMJ Case Reports*](), the man in question was in his 50s when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Normal enough — except that 20 months into his illness, he developed what the researchers called an "uncontrollable 'Irish brogue.'" Weirder still: the American man didn't have an Irish background and had never even been to Ireland — though he did, as the paper notes, live briefly in England in his 20s and knew people from Ireland. This bizarre affliction, known more generally as "foreign accent syndrome," is a [motor speech disorder]() most often caused by strokes or traumatic brain injuries in which people's speech patterns change in a manner that makes them sound like they've suddenly developed a "foreign" accent that has no correlation to their country of origin. FAS has only [been documented about 100 times]() since it was first defined in 1907, and as such is considered to be exceedingly rare. As the writers of the *BMJ* journal paper note, cancer-linked FAS symptoms are usually accompanied by brain tumors and the disorder had never before been seen with prostate cancer. In the case of this poor bloke, doctors suspected that he likely developed neurological damage as a result of his immune response to his unusually-aggressive form of prostate cancer, which spread throughout his body in spite of attempts at treatment and eventually reached his brain. While FAS symptoms often gradually lessen and even disappear as people recover from their underlying brain injuries, the strange accent continued until the man died — which could easily be seen as a medical case study version of last year's surprising box office smash "[Banshees of Inisherin]()," a dark fairy tale that takes place on an eerily pastoral Irish island. While it's no "[In Bruges]()," this tale of misbegotten Irishness is a startling reminder of how complex and delicate our neurological systems can be — and how easy it is for the works to get gummed up. **More on strange speech:** [*Magazine Publishes Serious Errors in First AI-Generated Health Article*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()