The Norwegian scholar Carl Marstrander, who visited the island in 1907, urged Robin Flower, of the British Museum, to visit the Blaskets. She and Pádraig had eleven children, of whom six survived. Peig moved to the Great Blasket Island after marrying Pádraig Ó Guithín, a fisherman and native of the island.
She had expected to join her best friend, Cáit Boland, in America, but Cáit wrote that she had had an accident and could not forward the cost of the fare. She spent the next few years as a domestic servant working for members of the growing middle class produced by the Land War. She spent two years there before returning home due to illness. At age 12, she was taken out of school and went to work as a servant for the Curran family in the nearby town of Dingle, where she said she was well treated. Her father Tomás Sayers was a renowned storyteller who passed on many of his tales to Peig. She was called Peig after her mother, Margaret "Peig" Brosnan, from Castleisland. She was born Máiréad Sayers in the townland of Vicarstown, Dunquin, County Kerry, the youngest child of the family. Seán Ó Súilleabháin, the former archivist for the Irish Folklore Commission, described her as "one of the greatest woman storytellers of recent times". “ If not for Mairi, I would have taken down to the grave all I have written here.Peig Sayers ( / ˌ p ɛ ɡ ˈ s ɛər z/ 1873–1958) was an Irish author and seanachaí born in Dunquin (Dún Chaoin), County Kerry, Ireland. Peig Sayers gives all the credit in the world to Mairi Kennedy whose name is held in high esteem among the Irish people.
But it is true there is no cure for sorrow but to tell it with patience.” Peak tells her life story in this way, “ I have dragged my way through life suffering torment and sorrow and it is little comfort I knew during the whole of my days. More sorrow for the family when paid Rick died so far from home. Many men and sometimes entire families left for England and America, as did pigs son Patrick. It was a hard life for the island people as it was in Ireland when the potato famine came. Pig enjoyed the get togethers as she could entertain by reciting poems and stories learned at school. She listened closely and memorized everything to relate it to the family.Īny entertainment the family enjoyed was getting together in the evenings for storytelling, singing and dancing, and a good supply of whiskey and Porter to make a merry party. She had first to learn Irish, as the language of the island was quite different. Peig was bright as a new penny and loved to go to school. A dress was sewn for Peig to wear to school. Peig’s older and only sister took over the household, due to her mother's poor help. Poverty killed them.” Peig was only four years old when she ventured to their little country school. I had a pair of brothers and a sister, mayor, that lived and nine who died. There wasn't much pleasure out of life, there was always some misfortune in life that kept them low. “ My people had little property, all the land they possessed was the grass of two cows. Peig was born on a small town in Don clear where the house of more stands. Peig tells us, “ I'm an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge, I have experienced much ease and much hardship.” Michael in the forward of this book, writes it in this way, “ Praise be to God! I little thought at this time in my life that such an important piece of literary work lay hidden in my mother's old Gray head.” Peig was bedridden and deaf when she was persuaded to tell her life story, a tale of life on the Great Blasket Island. Then editing the text after it had been originally written down by her poet son, Michael O’Guthrim. This is a unique autobiography as Peig was persuaded by Maire Ni’Chirside to tell her life story. By Peig Sayers translated into English by Byron MacMahon