Teacher goes viral for rendition of hits in Belfast accent on TikTok

Kirstin Aston from Shankill, has over 1.4 million likes and 40,000 followers on the social media platform and sings everything from modern pop hits to stage musical classics.

Speaking to BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster show on Tuesday, the 24-year-old singer said she finds “so much joy” in making the videos and said more people should sing with their own accent.

Ms Aston – who started singing at the age of 14 – also hit out at internet trolls who accused her of miming on the videos.

“Some people absolutely love it [the accent] to bits and some people hate it,” she said.

“If you think I went to all that effort to pre-record that for a one-minute TikTok video, you don’t know how lazy I am.”

In one of Ms Aston’s videos she sings Barbra Streisand‘s Don't Rain on My Parade from the 1964 musical Funny Girl, introducing the performance saying: “If people in musicals were from Belfast, this is exactly what they would sound like”.

The singer, who works at the NI Stars stage school, also has videos giving other hits the Belfast treatment, including Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy and Billy Joel’s Vienna.

“I understand sometimes the vowels and the way you have to sing things you have to sing it in a certain way,” she added.

“I did this as a bit of banter and because I genuinely just love anything Belfast.

“I am obsessed with it I was always told I have such a broad Belfast accent and thought right I am proud of that, it is the way I speak.

“I think it is great. I honestly think everyone should give it a go. It is a bit of craic and maybe you will get a couple of followers on TikTok.”