Despite, or perhaps because of, being written in halting English, Eibhlís’ letters have an intense, poetic appeal, becoming increasingly elegiac in tone as she records and laments the relentless decline of the Island’s population.īesides the correspondence with George Chambers, she kept a diary in Irish over the years, making many detailed observations about the social life of the Islanders. The letters are unique in the context of Blasket literature, not least for being written in English, very much a second language for Eibhlís. Peig Sayers is one of Irelands greatest storytellers. The letters span her early adult life on the Island and the first decade of her life on the mainland, to which she moved with her family in 1942. The selection draws on the lengthy correspondence Eibhlís maintained with an English visitor to the Island, George Chambers, between 19. In 1950 he was drowned while swimming near Galway.Ĭhiefly remembered as the author of a remarkable series of letters, a selection of which was published as Letters from the Great Blasket (1978). The book’s success encouraged Muiris to take up writing full-time, but a second volume of autobiography and a novel were rejected by successive publishers. there until it was finally abandoned in 1953 and visitors can look around the derelict former homes of people like old Peig Sayers, whose Irish tales have been translated into. PEIG - What does PEIG stand for The Free Dictionary. The English translation, published the same year by Thomson and Moya Llewellyn Davies, quickly established it as an international classic of autobiographical writing. PEIG is listed in the Worlds largest and most authoritative dictionary database of abbreviations and acronyms. The result, Twenty Years a-Growing, was acclaimed nationally on its publication in 1933. It was the success of Tomás Ó Criomhthain’s autobiographical book The Islandman, combined with the encouragement of his friend George Thomson, that prompted Muiris to undertake his own account of his formative years on the Blaskets. He was greatly aided in this by his grandfather, Eoghan (Daideo) Ó Súilleabháin, a gifted storyteller who developed a great affection for the boy. When he rejoined his family on the Island he spoke only English, but quickly became fluent in Irish. But he steadily improved his writing abilities until he was able to produce his two best known works Allagar na hInise (1928), and An tOileánach (1929), in his own hand.Īs works of high literary merit coming out of an oral culture, they are triumphs of determination to master the written word – to leave a record, as he wrote in the closing lines of An tOileánach, ‘of what life was like in my time and the neighbours that lived with me’.įollowing the death of his mother, Muiris spent the first six years of his life in Dingle. His first major book, Seanchas ón Oileán Tiar, published in 1956, was dictated to Robin Flower. He received great encouragement from the scholars Carl Marstrander and Robin Flower and later as editors from Brian Ó Ceallaigh and Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha. Having been taught to write only English in school, he was faced in his middle years with the challenge of learning to write in his native Irish in order to record the life and history of his people. A farmer and fisherman, he lived all his life on the Island. 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.Perhaps the greatest of the Island writers. 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. She discovered that Sayers was a much maligned woman who, in many ways, was the opposite of that portrayed in her autobiography. 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. “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. 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. Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island (Irish Studies) Paperback Octoby Peig Sayers (Author), Peig Bryan MacMahon (Translator) 135 ratings Hardcover 14.90 5 Used from 14.90 Paperback 19.95 30 Used from 7.86 28 New from 14.
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