Life
1873-1958; b. March, Vicarstown, Dún Chaoin [Dunquin], Co. Kerry;
one of four of a family of thirteen children surviving childhood; servant
girl in house of Dingle shopkeeper, treated kindly; returned home for
health reasons; disappointed in hopes of emigration to US when her friend Cáít
Jim Boland reneged on promise to send home fare; harshly treated in another
Dingle house; match-married Pádraig Ó Guíthín
[var. Ó Gaoithín] of Great Blasket Island, of their
ten children, seven surviving infancy; lived there forty years until evacuated
with the other islanders in 1941 [var. 1953]; sole companion in later
years her blind brother-in-law; store of folklore; 375 wonder tales recorded
from her by Seamus Ó Dalaigh of the Folklore Commission; autobiography
dictated to her son Micheál; ed. Máire Ní Chinnéide
as Peig (1936), trans. Bryan MacMahon (1974); Machnamh Sheanmhá
(1939), trans. by Séamus Ennis as An Old Woman’s Reflections
(1962); further instalment of autobiography, also dictated, Beatha
Pheig Sayers (1970); she had an active vocabulary of 30,000 words;
d. 8 Dec. DIW DIB DIH OCIL
Works
Peig, ed. Máire Ní Chinnéide (Dublin: Talbot
1936); Kenneth Jackson ed., Scéalta ón mBlascaod,
(Dublin: Oifig an tSoláthair 1938); Máire ní Chinnéide,
ed., Machtnamh Sheana-mhná, (Dublin: Oifig an tSoláthair
1939); Mícheál Ó Gaoithín [her son],
ed., Beatha Pheig Sayers (Dublin: Foilseacháin Náisiúnta
Tta. 1970); also stories collected by Robin Flower and Kenneth Jackson
in Béaloídeas; 160 tales collected for Irish Folklore
Commission by Seosamh Ó Dálaigh, unpublished; note a further
c.100 stories collected from Mícheál Ó Gaoithín
by Bo Almqvist of UCD.
IN TRANSLATION, Séamus Ennis, An Old Woman’s Reflections [Machtnamh Seana-Mhná], introduced by W. R. Rodgers (London: OUP 1962; rep. 1993); Bryan MacMahon, Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island (Dublin: Talbot 1974); see also Tim Enright, trans., Mícheál O’Guiheen, A Pity Youth does Not Last (OUP q.d.) [160pp., ill.]
Criticism
Seán Ó Súilleabháin, ‘Peig Sayers’, Éire-Ireland, 5, 1 (Spring
1970), pp.86-91.
MacMahon, ‘Peig Sayers and the Vernacular of the Story Teller’, in Feder and Schrank, eds., Literature and Folk Culture (1977), pp.83-109.
Marian Broderick, Wild Irish Women: Extraordinary Lives in Irish History (Dublin: O’Brien Press 2001).
Eddie Holt, TV Review, Irish Times, 12 Dec. 1998, Weekend, p.7; in connection with Breandán Feiritéar’s The Voices of the Generations - the Story of Peig Sayers, transmitted 8th Dec. 1998.
Conor McCarthy, Modernisation: Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992 (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2000), p.135.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)