Irish English "treaty"

[Arnold Zwicky]

just caught an address by John Bruton, the EU ambassador to the US,
who is Irish.  Bruton repeatedly pronounced "treaty" as what sounded
to me like a trisyllable, with [i:@].  it then occurred to me that
this might just have been breaking of [i:].  a quick search for
information on the pronunciation of Irish English yielded no report of
[i:]-breaking.  anyone have any information on the subject?

i wonder if Bruton has [i:@] in "treat".  and how many syllables he
thinks "treaty" has.

arnold

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