Tg4 peig sayers2/3/2024 "Peig was the Netflix of the time," says Ní Dhálaig, outlining a different side to Sayers' legacy, one of a full house where friends and neighbours would gather to be entertained. Heading home for Corca Dhuibne, a homeplace she shares with the great storyteller, Ní Uallacháin makes for the Blasket Centre, where she speaks with Máire Ní Dhálaigh, who sets about righting a long-held wrong. She filled her brief well," remarks a clearly-awed Ní Uallacháin. One of the documentary's real standout moments, though, comes when existing recordings of Peig's storytelling are played from reel-to-reel tape, revealing a raspy, colourful voice that betrays a natural orator. Pictures of a broadly-smiling old woman, taking obvious joy in speaking with others, cast her in a new light. It's one thing to see old pictures and read tales that reinforce perceptions of Sayers as a doom-sayer, especially when set against excerpts of others' work satirising her life and legacy.īut when Ní Uallacháin steps into the archives at the National Folklore Collection at UCD, history springs to life. A constant of the documentary, in fact, is questioning her suitability for the syllabus in the first place - a decision attributed to the early Irish governments' attempts at placing an established Irish canon in schools, as well as selective interpretation on her son Maidhc's part when writing stories down. It was never Sayers' intention to be placed on the curriculum in the first place, of course. 1973.Many people of a certain vintage point to her writing as a deterrent from learning Irish ("That bitch ruined my life!", exclaims one person, in a story). The Western Island. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945. " Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. The books were not written down by Peig, but were dictated to others. Sayers is most famous for her autobiography Peig ( ISBN 0-8156-0258-8), but also for the folklore and stories which were recorded in Machnamh Seanmhná ( An Old Woman's Reflections, ISBN 978-0-19-281239-1). She was remembered by one of the nuns there as "very stately and very dignified." A further volume of autobiography, Beatha Pheig Sayers, was published posthumously in 1970. After a bad fall in the late 1940s, her health deteriorated, and she spent the last eight years of her life in the Dingle Hospital. Peig, her son and her brother-in-law went back to live near Vicarstown on the mainland at the end of 1941. Ó Dálaigh recalled that Sayers' forte was the short tale: "from the opening of the narrative one would have no idea where the tale might turn."īy this time the Blaskets were in terminal decline and many islanders left during the Second World War. Thus in 1938, Seosamh Ó Dálaigh (Joseph Daly) arrived he would spend several years recording 350 ancient legends, ghost stories, folk stories, and religious stories of Peig's on an Ediphone cylinder. The head of the Irish Folklore Commission to send a full-time collector to speak to Peig. Peig was published in 1936. A second volume, Machnamh Sean-mhná (An Old Woman's Reflections), also edited by Ní Chinnéide, was published in 1939. He transcribed her recordings and sent them to Ní Chinnéide in Dublin who edited them for publication. It was a teacher Máire Ní Chinnéide , who was a regular visitor to the Blaskets, urged Peig to tell her story to Micheál. Micheál, returned in 1930 and earned a living sheep rearing and writing poetry. Peig had 11 children, six of which survived, all children emmigrated to the United States during the 1920's. There are some accounts of it being an arranged marriage while other accounts say she fell madly in love in him after seeing him on the island. She had no other choice but to return to work as a domestic servant.She returned home to Vicarstown in 1832 and married Pádraig Ó Gaoithín from the Great Blasket Island wurho was 12 years older than her on the 13th February. It was her wish to follow in the footsteps of her elder siblings and make the trip to America however the fare for her passage promised by her friend Cáit Boland never arrived. She was happy there however had to return home after 4 years due to illness. Her first job was a domestic servant in the nearby down of Dingle to the Curran family. She attended the local National School until she was 14. Tomás was a small farmer and a storyteller himself. Peig was the youngest child of Tomás and Margaret Sayers and was one of 13 children. Despite not writing a single sentence, Peig dictated her recollections about life on the Great Blasket Island to her son Micheál Ó Guithín. Peig Sayers is one of Ireland's greatest storytellers.
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