Ardal O'Hanlon has said he removes the "Irishisms" from every show he works on because he is "very conscious of the way the Irish are represented".
The Monaghan actor, who is taking over from Kris Marshall as the star of the BBC's Caribbean detective series Death in Paradise, told British magazine Radio Times that he has battled against Irish screen stereotypes "from day one working in TV".
"In every show I've been involved in I read the script, take out the Irishisms right away and say, 'I'll supply those'," he said.
"Father Ted was written by Irish people, so that was fine, but around the time we were shooting it EastEnders went to Ireland and represented it as this terribly backward society where people were going around with one eye and drunk."
The three EastEnders episodes in question, which aired in 1997, saw Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard) travelling to Ireland to meet a long-lost relative. They were the subject of complaints to the BBC, and the broadcaster subsequently apologised for the offence caused.
"That outraged people in Ireland," said O'Hanlon of the soap's depiction of Irish people. "But that will happen from time to time, we were brought up with that."
As for his new role as Detective Inspector Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise, O'Hanlon said he is "crippled with doubt" about taking over from departing star Marshall.
"For most of us, even the apparently very confident ones, doubt is a big part of life," he said. "But I'm of a certain age now, and those kind of things don't plague me the way they might have 10 years ago - I embrace the challenge."
When asked for differences between Mooney and his character, DI Humphrey Goodman, Marshall replied: "He's Irish, for starters."
"His character's a lot more anecdotal, so the way he goes about things is different," Marshall continued. "He's also been recently widowed - and he has a daughter in her early 20s. So that's a whole different dynamic."
The season finale of Death in Paradise airs on BBC One on Thursday at 9pm.
