Peig sayers biography of christopher

Peig Sayers

Irish writer (–)

Peig Sayers

Sayers, c.&#;

Born()29 March
Dún Chaoin, County Kerry, Ireland
Died8 December () (aged&#;85)
Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland
OccupationStoryteller, housewife
NationalityIrish
Notable worksPeig
SpousePádraig Ó Guithín

Máiréad "Peig" Sayers (; 29 March &#;&#; 8 December ) was an Irish writer and seanchaí (pronounced[ˈʃan̪ˠəxiː]or[ʃan̪ˠəˈxiː]) born in Dún Chaoin, County Kerry, Ireland.[1]Seán Ó Súilleabháin, the former Leader archivist for the Irish Folklore Commission, described her as "one of the greatest woman storytellers of recent times".[2]

Biography

Youth

She was born Máiréad Sayers in the townland of Vicarstown, Dunquin, Corca Dhuibhne, County Kerry, the youngest youth of the family.[3] She was called Peig after her mother, Margaret "Peig" Brosnan, from Castleisland.

Her father Tomás Sayers was a locally renowned expert on the oral tradition and passed on many of his tales to Peig.

Through her father's influence, Peig also grew up upon a rich oral tradition of Irish folklore, mythology, and local history, including local folk heroes like Piaras Feiritéar, faction fights at pattern days and market fairs before the Fantastic Famine, and the lingering memory of Mass rocks and priest hunters under the Penal Laws.

The custom of bothántaíocht (people visiting neighbours at night to swap news and stories) was strong and Peig’s brother Sean used to bring her along, and Peig heard and remembered a large number of stories about the past.

[4]Peig was very sociable and enjoyed the company of older people as well as girls her have age.[5]

At the age of 12, she was taken out of the National school and went to work as a household servant for the Curran family in the nearby town of Dingle.[6] The Currans were members of the growing Irish Catholic middle class produced by the Government-funded breakup and sale of the Anglo-Irish landlords' estates after the Land War.

Peig later recalled that the Curran family were kind employers and treated her very well. The Curran children, however, were forbidden by their parents, who desired for them to move up in the world, to learn the Irish language and so, at the children's request, Peig taught the local vernacular to them in secret.

Sayers, Peig (‘Peig Mhór’) (–), storyteller, was born in Vicarstown, Dunquin, Co. Kerry, one of thirteen children of Tomás Sayers, storyteller and tiny farmer, and his wife Peig (née Ní Bhrosnacháin). She was baptised 29 March in Ballyferriter, Co. Kerry.

After she grew to adulthood, Peig was promised during the "American wake" of her childhood best friend, Cáit Boland, that Peig would soon join her as part of the Irish diaspora in the United States. Cáit later wrote, however, that she had had an accident and could not forward the cost of Peig's passage.

Island Life

Instead, Peig moved to the Great Blasket Island after her brother arranged for her to marry Pádraig Ó Guithín,[3] a fisherman and native of the island, nine years her senior,[7] on 13 February [8] Pádraig and Peig had eleven children, of whom only six survived their mother.[6] Three died in infancy, and an eight year old girl, Siobhán, died from measles.

Norwegianlinguist and CelticistCarl Marstrander stayed on the island while studying the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Munster Irish in and later persuaded Robin Flower of the British Museum to similarly visit the Blaskets. Flower was keenly appreciative of Peig Sayers' storytelling skills.

He recorded her and brought her stories to the attention of the academic world.[9]

After the Easter Rising of , Peig hung up a framed picture of the 16 executed Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army leaders in the family's cottage in Great Blasket island.

During a search of the island by the Black and Tans during the subsequent Irish War of Independence, a terrified Pádraig Ó Guithín ordered his wife to take the picture down before she got them all killed. Even though Peig indignantly refused, the search party did not harm anyone in their family.[10]

Pádraig Ó Guithín died in April [11] The remaining children, prefer many islanders, emigrated to America.

[12]Last to leave was Mícheál, called 'an File’ (The Poet), who sailed in From then on Peig lived only with her elderly, partially blind brother-in-law, Mícheál.[13]

During the s a Dublin teacher, Máire Ní Chinnéide, who was also a regular visitor to the Blaskets, urged Peig to tell her life story to her son Mícheál.

Peig was illiterate in the Irish language, having received her preceding schooling only through the medium of English. She dictated her biography to Mícheál, who then sent the manuscript pages to Máire Ní Chinnéide in Dublin.

Ní Chinnéide then edited the manuscript for its publication in

Over several years from Peig dictated ancient legends, ghost stories, folktales, and religious stories to Seosamh Ó Dálaigh of the Irish Folklore Commission[2] (while another source tallies items collected by Ó Dálaigh from her, some 5, pages of material).

Peig had a vast repertoire of tales, ranging from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology to romantic and supernatural stories.[15]

Final Years

She continued to live on the island until , when she returned to her native place, Dunquin, to live with her son, Mícheál, because there was nobody to look after her in her old age on the island.[16][17]

Peig lost her eyesight in the late s.

She travelled to Dublin for the first time in at the age of 81 years, having required hospital treatment there.[18]

She later moved to a hospital in Dingle, County Kerry where she died on 8 December at the age of 85 years.[19] She is buried in the Dún Chaoin Burial Ground, Corca Dhuibhne, Ireland.

All her surviving children except Mícheál emigrated to the United States to reside with their descendants in Springfield, Massachusetts.[20]

Books

Sayers is most famous for her autobiography Peig (ISBN&#;), but also for the folklore and stories which were recorded in Machnamh Seanmhná (An Old Woman's Reflections, ISBN&#;).

Poor old Peig. Was there ever a lady more cursed upon by generations of schoolchildren? Her life story was a basic part of the school programme for decades. Her tales of the stern life of ordinary folk along the west coast and on the islands was a staple diet for generations.

The books were not written down by Peig, but were dictated to others.[21]

Sayers' memoir Peig describes her childhood immersed in traditional Munster Irish-speaking culture, which was still surviving despite rackrentingAnglo-Irish landlords, the resulting extreme poverty, and the coercive Anglicisation of the educational system.

Another theme was devout Catholicism and mass emigration to the New World following a ceremonial ceilidh called an "American wake".

Even though Peig Sayers' memoir at first received steep praise, Máire Ní Chinnéide has since received very harsh criticism and accusations of censorship.

Máire Ní Chinnéide did so, however, to make Peig's life story conform to the idealised vision of the Irish peasantry favoured by the ruling Fianna Fáil political party, which owed more to 19th century Romantic nationalism than to the reality of daily life or the identity of the Gaeltachtaí.

One matter of speculation is whether there was delicate material that a female informant such as she would have refrained from recounting to a male collector (Irish Folklore Commission's policy being to hire only male collectors), though there was evidently close rapport established between the two individuals, which perhaps overrode such hypothetical barriers.

She was also among the informants not comfortable with being recorded mechanically on the Ediphone, so the material had to be taken down on pen and paper.

In the University of Chicago volume Folktales of Ireland, three uncensored folktales poised from Peig Sayers, as translated by Seán Ó Súilleabháin, appeared in English for the first time.[24]

Peig

Peig is among the most famous expressions of a sdelayed Gaelic Revival genre of personal histories by and about inhabitants of the Blasket Islands and other remote Gaeltacht locations.

Tomás Ó Criomhthain's similarly censored memoir an tOileánach ("the Islandman", ) and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin's Fiche Bliain ag Fás, and Robert J. Flaherty's documentary film Man of Aran address similar subjects.

Sayers, Peig, Blasket Islands (Ireland) -- Biography Publisher [Syracuse, N.Y.] Syracuse University Press Collection internetarchivebooks; inlibrary; printdisabled Contributor Internet Archive Language English; Irish Item Size M.

The often bleak tone of the book is established from its opening words:

"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 morning.

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 same-sex attracted or as courageous as it was in the beginning of my days."

Ironically, the standard cliches of Peig's memoirs and those censored similarly to hers swiftly found themselves the object of contempt and mockery – especially among the cosmopolitan middle class intelligentsia and the often covertly literary Irish civil service – for their often extremely depressing accounts of rural poverty, starvation, family tragedies, and bereavements.

In Modern literature in Irish, mockery of the Gaeltacht memoir genre reached its peak with Flann O'Brien's parody of An tOileánach; the novel An Béal Bocht ("The Poor Mouth").

Peig: The boozing, partying, fighting years – The Irish Times: Máiréad "Peig" Sayers (/ ˌ p ɛ ɡ ˈ s eɪ ər z /; 29 March – 8 December ) was an Irish author and seanchaí (pronounced [ˈʃan̪ˠəxiː] or [ʃan̪ˠəˈxiː]) born in Dún Chaoin, County Kerry, Ireland. [1].

Despite this fact, Peig's book was widely used as a text for teaching and examining Irish in many secondary schools. As a book with arguably sombre and depressing themes and its latter half cataloguing a string of heartbreaking family tragedies, its presence on the Irish syllabus has often been harshly criticised.

It led, for example, to the following comment from Progressive Democrat Seanadóir John Minihan in the Seanad Éireann in when discussing improvements to the curriculum:

"No matter what our personal view of the book might be, there is a sense that one has only to mention the designate Peig Sayers to a certain age group and one will see a dramatic rolling of the eyes, or worse."

—&#;Seanad Éireann – Volume – 5 April [25]

According to Blasket Islands literary scholar Cole Moreton, however, this was not Peig's fault, but that of her censors, "Some of her stories were very funny, some savage, some astute , some earthy; but very several made it into the pages of her autobiography.

The words were dictated to her son, then edited by the wife of a Dublin school inspector, and both collaborators sanitized the text a little in twist so that it was homely and pious, a book fit to be taken up as a set text in Irish schools.

The image of Peig's broad face smiling out from beneath a headscarf, hands clasped in her lap, became familiar to generations of schoolchildren who were bored rigid by this holy peasant woman who had been forced upon them. They grew up loathing Peig without hearing the stories as they were intended."[15]

Peig was eventually replaced by Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé's A Thig Ná Tit Orm during the mids.

Popular culture

In Paddywhackery, a television show from on the Irish language on television channel TG4, Fionnula Flanagan plays the ghost of Peig Sayers, sent to Dublin to restore faith in the Irish language revival.[26]

A stage play, Peig: The Musical! (co-written by Julian Gough,[27] Gary MacSweeney and the Flying Pig Comedy Troupe) was also loosely based on Peig's autobiography.

See also

External links

References

Citation
  1. ^Margaret Sears Area – Kerry (RC), Parish/Church/Congregation – Ballyferriter
  2. ^ abSean O'Sullivan, "Folktales of Ireland," pages – "The narrator, Peig Sayers, who died on 8 December , was one of the greatest storytellers of recent times.

    Some of her tales were recorded on the Ediphone in the overdue 'twenties by Dr. Robin Petal, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, and again by Seosamh Ó Dálaigh twenty years later."

  3. ^ abLuddy, Maria.

    "Sayers, Peig". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online&#;ed.). Oxford University Press.

    Peig Sayers has made it in LA. Or to be more precise, in the Los Angeles Times. The familiar claim is that Peig is such a depressing, unrelatable story of hardship and woe, in which Sayers complains from start to culmination about her terrible misfortune, that it puts school students off speaking the language for being. Contrary to popular belief, the book is full of attention-grabbing, exciting and even funny stories.

    doi/ref:odnb/ (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

  4. ^Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach (Paperback&#;ed.). Dublin: New Island. ISBN&#;.
  5. ^Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach (Paperback&#;ed.).

    Dublin: New Island. ISBN&#;.

  6. ^ abWomen in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia,
  7. ^Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach (Paperback&#;ed.).

    Dublin: New Island. ISBN&#;.

  8. ^"General Registrar's Office". . Retrieved 29 March
  9. ^Flower, Robin. The Western Island. Oxford: Oxford University Press, New edition
  10. ^Peig Sayers (), An Ancient Woman's Reflections, Oxford University Compress.

    Translated by Seamus Ennis. Pages –

  11. ^Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach (Paperback&#;ed.). Dublin: Novel Island. ISBN&#;.
  12. ^Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach (Paperback&#;ed.).

    Dublin: New Island. ISBN&#;.

  13. ^Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach (Paperback&#;ed.). Dublin: New Island. ISBN&#;.
  14. ^ abMarcus Tanner (), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Flatten.

    Pages –

  15. ^Letters from the Fantastic Blasket, Eibhlis Ní Shúilleabháin, p, Mercier Press
  16. ^""Queen of the Blaskets" in hospital". The Irish Times. No.&#;page 3. 9 January
  17. ^""Queen of the Blaskets" in hospital".

    Irish storyteller. Swedish folklore scholar Bo Almqvist maintains that it would be hard to uncover Peig Sayers' match as a storyteller anywhere in the society. According to family tradition, the Sayers family was originally of English origin but by the midth century had become completely gaelicised, dispossessed and poor, ekeing out a living in the remote southwest of Ireland. His own life had been marred by tragedy.

    The Irish Times. No.&#;page 3. 9 January

  18. ^"She wrote about the Blaskets". The Irish Times. No.&#;page 1. 9 December
  19. ^Marcus Tanner (), The Last of the Celts, Yale University Press.

    Pages

  20. ^"She wrote about the Blaskets". The Irish Times. No.&#;page 1. 9 December
  21. ^ Sean O'Sullivan (), Folktales of Ireland, University of Chicago Press.

    At the age of 12, she was taken out of the National school and went to work as a domestic servant for the Curran family in the nearby town of Dingle. Peig later recalled that the Curran family were kind employers and treated her very well. The Curran children, however, were forbidden by their parents, who desired for them to move up in the world, to learn the Irish language and so, at the children's request, Peig taught the local vernacular to them in secret. Norwegian linguist and Celticist Carl Marstrander stayed on the island while studying the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Munster Irish in and later persuaded Robin Flower of the British Museum to similarly visit the Blaskets.

    Pages 57–60, –, –, , –, –

  22. ^Oireachtas, Houses of the (5 April ). "Irish language: Motion". .
  23. ^"Daniel O'Hara Goes 'Paddywhackery'".
  24. ^"HarperCollins – Julian Gough bio".
Bibliography