As Eoin McKiernan, President of the Irish American Cultural Institute, notes in his introduction, Peig has the "quality of honesty and sincerity, of life lived at the bone." Long loved in Ireland, this autobiography will now be seen for what it truly is-one of the great heart-cries of the Irish people. ![]() Through this American edition, Peig will reach a new international audience. She is buried a short distance from the townland where she was born, above the sea on the Dingle Peninsula, within sight of the Great Blasket Island. laid out as expertly and as calmly as if twelve women had tended him." Her own farewell to life had the same clear-eyed simplicity: "People will yet walk into the graveyard where I'll be lying I'll be stretched out quietly and the old world will have vanished." ![]() Peig said of her son Tomás, who was killed in a fall from a clifftop: "Instead of his body being out in the broad ocean, there he was on the smooth detached stone. It reveals with fidelity, humor, and poignancy a woman's life in a bleak world where survival itself was a triumph and death as familiar as life. Here is a story as unforgettable as it is simple. Unfortunately, the book came to associate the Irish language with poverty, misery and bored generations of teenagers to tears.TG4 broadcaster Sinéad Ní Uallacháin is attempting to rehabilitate Sayers's reputation and restore her as a storyteller worldwide.Here is one of the classics of modern Gaelic literature-the autobiography of Peig Sayers, a remarkable woman who lived forty years at the edge of survival on barren Great Blasket Island, and who came to be recognized as one of the last of Ireland's traditional storytellers. “I wonder what Peig would have said, if she knew that we’d still be talking about her, at length, in the year 2021?” mused Ní Uallacháin? Peig Sayers at her home on the Great Blasket Island in the 1930s. There are many layers to Peig, as I found out whilst making this programme.” “ This woman generously shared not only her life story, but many other stories that she had collected over the years I don’t believe the abuse she continuously receives is warranted. She discovered that Sayers was a much maligned woman who, in many ways, was the opposite of that portrayed in her autobiography. Máire Ní Dhálaigh, of the Office of Public Works's Blasket Centre, said: "Peig was the Netflix of the time and people gathered around her from far and wide. who loved to entertain and drew people to her."ĭr Criostoir MacCarthaigh told the documentary that contrary to the public image, Sayers was a woman with a strong sense of humour who was recorded in the 1940s by the Irish Folklore Commission and was a born performer.Storyteller. In 1942 she returned to Viacarstown, and in 1947 Radio Éireann's Travel Unit visited, recording over an hour of her stories. She was moved to a hospital in Dingle a few years later where Sean O’Sullivan recorded more of her repertoire. Born Máiréad Sayers in Vicarstown, Dún Chaoin, County Kerry, Ireland, the daughter of Margaret Ni Bhrosnachain (Brosnan) and Tomás Sayers. In 1892, she married Pádraig Ó Guithín from Great Blasket Island where she then moved, and there raised her family. Living in a one room stone cottage, they produced eleven children, six would survive to adulthood. She developed a reputation as a seanachaí, an Irish word indicating a tale teller or oral historian. Sean O’Sullivan, author of "Folktales of Ireland," once said she was among the last great Irish storytellers. Robin Flower, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, traveled to the island to record her tales. ![]() She dictated her biography in Gaelic to her son Micheál in 1936, the manuscript was published as 'Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island' and was for many years required reading in Irish schools. Beginning in 1938, she related her store of tales to the Irish Folklore Commission.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |