I have experienced much ease and much hardship from the day I was born until this very day. I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge. The opening lines of Peig (in translation) are often cited as an example of the dreariness of the book: ![]() 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. As late as 2006, however, the unsuitability of the book as a school text was the subject of a discussion in the Irish Senate: Subsequently Peig became required reading in Irish secondary schools and it was there in 1966 that I found Peig and loved her story, studying it from 1966-1968. On the instigation of a Dublin teacher who was a regular visitor to the Blaskets, Peig dictated her life story to her son who in turn sent the manuscript to the Dublin teacher. She became known as a storyteller as was her father before her. Kerry and moved to the Blasket Island in 1892 when she married. Peig Sayers was born in 1873 in Dunquin, Co. Peig for me, however, has been a source of comfort and joy all my life, but my response is such a minority one that I took to reading Peig again recently to see if I should change my mind. ![]() Readers’ comments included: ‘scarred for life’, ‘traumatised’, ‘resulting in cold sweats’, ‘grim’, ‘one long whinge’. Just a year ago it was a talking point for Ireland’s TodayFM radio program in a segment titled ‘The Best Reaction from Listeners Traumatised by Peig’. The Irish language book Peig is one of those text books that overwhelmingly elicit a negative response. Whoever now occupies the room where Peig was once a patient very likely has no idea that one of Ireland’s most famous storytellers once received the Irish press at her bedside there.A Feature on Irish Language Learning and Loving Peig by Dymphna Lonergan Its period buildings were later converted into luxury accommodation. The hospital where Peig was a patient closed in 1997. Whatever treatment Peig received in Dublin in 1952, it helped prolong her life. Manner and customs had changed – and not for the better.” “People in general, today, she thought, were not as friendly as they used to be when she was a young woman. Manner and customs had changed – and not for the better People in general, today, she thought, were not as friendly as they used to be when she was a young woman. “Peig speaks English, unwillingly and falteringly, but there is nothing faltering about her Irish.” The whiskey had been given to her by one of her Dublin friends, who is unnamed. “Dublin was the big city, said, where all the people were ‘posh’ (it sounded better in the Irish term, ‘galánta’).” She was attended by an Irish-speaking nurse, Áine O Friel. Peig received the press in bed, wrapped in a shawl and drinking a glass of whiskey. Peig Sayers: the storyteller with her Irish-speaking nurse, Áine O Friel, at St Anne's Hospital in Ranelagh, Dublin, in a photograph that appeared in The Irish Times on January 9th, 1952 The hospital clearly had no problem opening its doors for the “reporters and photographers” who crowded around her bed as if she were a curiosity. Today we would consider it a gross invasion of privacy to have what seemed like a free-for-all press conference and photocall at the hospital bedside of someone both seriously ill and blind. The report is a fascinating if uncomfortable read. Today we would consider it an invasion of privacy to have a press conference and photocall at the hospital bedside of someone both seriously ill and blind Photograph courtesy of University College Dublin Peig Sayers: her mournful memoir was required reading for a generation of Irish school students. She was brought to St Anne's, on Northbrook Road in Ranelagh, a hospital for "diseases of the skin and cancer". At that point she had been off the Great Blasket for 10 years, living in Dún Chaoin with her son, Mícheál Ó Gaoithín. She had come to the city the day before by ambulance from Tralee. ![]() On Wednesday, January 9th, 1952, The Irish Times carried a story about Peig's first visit to Dublin. Peig is so synonymous with Kerry that it comes as a surprise to discover that she received visitors in Dublin on this day 66 years ago, aged 81. If you’re familiar with the name Peig Sayers the first thing that probably pops into your head is an image of a woman in a shawl, followed by one of the Great Blasket island, in Co Kerry.įamously, or infamously, it was Peig who wrote a mournful memoir that a generation of Irish people (including me) were required to study in Irish class.
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