At Peig Sayers' Grave

Haven't yet read Peig Sayers' famous autobiography, Peig, but before setting off on the Slea Head Way for Dingle, it was a must to visit her grave in Dunquin:

My friend knew the way to the cemetery where Peig was buried which lay at the foot of a hill, and was positioned on the side of Dunquin where we would set off for Dingle from.

At the time, I had a sketchy view of Peig's life

story: that she was born and brought up in the Dunquin area, and went on to live on the Great Blasket Island through marriage, where her fame rose as a great storyteller.

After visiting the Great Blasket Island, I felt compelled to learn a bit more about Peig's life story:

 

Some quick Internet research reveals that from as early as the age of 12, Peig had worked as a servant in Dingle and then her native Dunquin area. 

 

Interestingly, Peig had expected to follow a good friend, Cáit Boland, to America, but this plan had fallen through due to her friend having an accident in the States, and not being able to afford Peig's fare.

 

Instead, while still a late teenager, Peig moved to the Great Blasket Island after marrying Pádraig Ó Guithín, a fisherman from the island. Peig and Pádraig had 11 children, of whom only six survived.

 

Her book, Peig, was published in 1936 and was produced through Peig dictating her life story to her son Mícheál who sent the manuscript pages in Irish to Máire Ní Chinnéide in Dublin, who edited them for publication. Máire Ní Chinnéide was a regular visitor to the Blaskets and had encouraged Peig to recall and tell her life story.

 

Peig is now commonly viewed as a famous example of a late Gaelic Revival genre of personal histories written by and about inhabitants from the Blasket Islands and other remote Irish places. 

 

In terms of content, Peig is said to depict, with a bleak tone, the declining years of a traditional Irish-speaking way of life characterised by such things as poverty/hardship/great hunger, devout Catholicism, and a kind of folk memory of gang violence. 

 

Despite not having read Peig yet, I have read The Loneliest Boy in the World by Gearóid Cheaist Ó Catháin, a brilliant life story contrasting the author's early childhood life as the last child on the Great Blasket Island, and later childhood life adapting to life on the Irish mainland after the Great Blasket Island was evacuated in the mid-1950s.

 

 

Must read Peig Sayers' book now, of course.

Finally, not far from Peig Sayers' grave, my friend showed me where the famous round-the-world solo sailor, Pat Lawless was buried:

I've now just started reading about Pat Lawless' amazing life story ...