Peig Sayers facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Peig Sayers
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Sayers, c. 1945
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| Born | 29 March 1873 Dún Chaoin, County Kerry, Ireland |
| Died | 8 December 1958 (aged 85) Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland |
| Occupation | Storyteller, housewife |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Notable works | Peig |
| Spouse | Pádraig Ó Guithín |
Máiréad "Peig" Sayers (born March 29, 1873 – died December 8, 1958) was a famous Irish writer and seanchaí. A seanchaí (pronounced shan-a-KEE) is a traditional Irish storyteller. She was born in Dún Chaoin, County Kerry, Ireland. Seán Ó Súilleabháin, who used to be the main archivist for the Irish Folklore Commission, called her "one of the greatest woman storytellers of recent times."
Contents
Her Life Story
Peig Sayers was born Máiréad Sayers in a place called Vicarstown, Dunquin, on the Corca Dhuibhne in County Kerry. She was the youngest child in her family. She was named Peig after her mother, Margaret "Peig" Brosnan. Her father, Tomás Sayers, was well-known in the area for his knowledge of old stories and traditions. He shared many of these tales with Peig.
Growing Up with Stories
Because of her father, Peig grew up surrounded by a rich tradition of Irish folklore, mythology, and local history. She learned about local heroes like Piaras Feiritéar. She also heard stories about big fights at local festivals and markets before the Great Famine. She learned about secret places where people practiced their religion during tough times, like Mass rocks, when laws made it hard for them.
Peig's later book, Peig, talks about her childhood. She lived in a culture where people spoke Munster Irish. This culture was strong even though landlords charged very high rents. This led to extreme poverty. Also, the school system tried to make everyone speak English instead of Irish.
Another important part of her memories was her strong Catholic faith. She also remembered many people leaving Ireland to go to America. This was often marked by a special party called an "American wake."
Working and Moving On
When she was 12, Peig left the local school. She went to work as a house helper for the Curran family in Dingle. The Currans were a middle-class Irish Catholic family. Peig later said that the Currans were kind and treated her well. However, the Curran children were not allowed to learn Irish by their parents. They wanted their children to get ahead in the world. But Peig secretly taught the children the local Irish language.
Later, Peig was promised she would join her best friend, Cáit Boland, in the United States. Cáit had moved there as part of the many Irish people who left the country. But Cáit later wrote that she had an accident and could not send money for Peig's trip.
Instead, Peig moved to the Great Blasket Island. Her brother arranged for her to marry Pádraig Ó Guithín, a fisherman from the island. They married on February 13, 1892.
Pádraig and Peig had eleven children. Sadly, only six of them lived longer than their mother.
Her Storytelling Becomes Famous
In 1907, a Norwegian language expert named Carl Marstrander stayed on the island. He was studying the Irish language spoken there. He later convinced Robin Flower from the British Museum to visit the Blaskets too. Flower really admired Peig Sayers' storytelling. He recorded her stories and shared them with scholars around the world.
After the Easter Rising in 1916, Peig hung a picture of the 16 executed Irish leaders in her cottage. During a search of the island by British soldiers called the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence, her husband Pádraig was scared. He told Peig to take the picture down so they wouldn't get into trouble. Peig refused, but the search party did not harm her family.
Writing Her Books
In the 1930s, a teacher from Dublin named Máire Ní Chinnéide often visited the Blaskets. She encouraged Peig to tell her life story to Peig's son, Mícheál. Peig could not read or write Irish herself, as she had only learned English in school. So, she told her story to Mícheál, who wrote it down. He then sent the pages to Máire Ní Chinnéide in Dublin. Máire Ní Chinnéide then edited the story for it to be published in 1936.
Peig Sayers' book was praised at first. However, Máire Ní Chinnéide later received criticism for how she edited it. She made Peig's life story fit a certain idea of Irish country people that the government at the time liked. This idea was more about old romantic stories than the real daily life of people in Irish-speaking areas (called Gaeltachts).
From 1938, Peig told 350 old legends, ghost stories, folktales, and religious stories to Seosamh Ó Dálaigh of the Irish Folklore Commission. Some sources say he collected 432 stories from her, filling about 5,000 pages! Peig knew a huge number of tales. These ranged from the old stories of the Fenian Cycle in Irish mythology to romantic and supernatural tales.
Peig continued to live on the island until 1942. Then, she moved back to her hometown, Dunquin. She later moved to a hospital in Dingle, County Kerry, where she passed away in 1958. She is buried in the Dún Chaoin Burial Ground in Corca Dhuibhne, Ireland. All her children who survived, except Mícheál, moved to the United States.
In 1966, a book called Folktales of Ireland was published. It included three of Peig Sayers' folktales, translated into English by Seán Ó Súilleabháin. These versions were not edited in the same way her autobiography was.
Her Books
Peig Sayers is most famous for her autobiography, Peig (ISBN: 0-8156-0258-8). She is also known for the folklore and stories recorded in Machnamh Seanmhná (which means An Old Woman's Reflections, ISBN: 978-0-19-281239-1). Peig did not write these books herself. She told the stories to others, who wrote them down.
About Peig
Peig is one of the most well-known books from a time when many personal stories were written about people living on the Blasket Islands and other remote Irish-speaking places. Other famous books from this time include Tomás Ó Criomhthain's An tOileánach ("the Islandman") and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin's Fiche Bliain ag Fás. The movie Man of Aran also explored similar topics.
The book often has a sad tone, right from its beginning:
"I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge. I have experienced much ease and much hardship from the day I was born until this very day. Had I known in advance half, or even one-third, of what the future had in store for me, my heart wouldn't have been as gay or as courageous as it was in the beginning of my days."
Over time, people started to make fun of the sad stories in Peig and similar books. This was especially true among city people and government workers. They found the stories of rural poverty, hunger, and family sadness very depressing. In modern Irish literature, this led to a famous parody of An tOileánach called An Béal Bocht ("The Poor Mouth") by Flann O'Brien.
Despite this, Peig's book was widely used to teach and test Irish in many secondary schools. Because the book had sad themes and described many heartbreaking family tragedies, its use in schools was often criticized.
For example, in 2006, a politician named John Minihan said in the Irish Parliament:
"No matter what our personal view of the book might be, there is a sense that one has only to mention the name Peig Sayers to a certain age group and one will see a dramatic rolling of the eyes, or worse."
However, a scholar named Cole Moreton said that this wasn't Peig's fault. He explained that "Some of her stories were very funny, some savage, some wise, some earthy; but very few made it into the pages of her autobiography." He added that the book was edited to be "homely and pious" so it would be suitable for schools. This made generations of schoolchildren bored with the image of a "holy peasant woman" and they grew up disliking Peig, without hearing her stories as she truly told them.
Peig was eventually replaced by Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé's A Thig Ná Tit Orm in the mid-1990s.
Peig in Popular Culture
In Paddywhackery, a TV show from 2007 on the Irish language channel TG4, Fionnula Flanagan played the ghost of Peig Sayers. In the show, Peig's ghost was sent to Dublin to help people believe in the language revival of Irish again.
A stage play called Peig: The Musical! was also loosely based on Peig's autobiography. It was co-written by Julian Gough, Gary MacSweeney, and the Flying Pig Comedy Troupe.
See also
