Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island
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Book Overview
Here is one of the classics of modern Gaelic literature--the autobiography of Peig Sayers, a remarkable woman who lived forty years at the edge of survival on barren Great Blasket Island, and who came to be recognized as one of the last of Ireland's traditional storytellers.
Here is a story as unforgettable as it is simple. It reveals with fidelity, humor, and poignancy a woman's life in a bleak world where survival itself was a triumph and death as familiar as life. Peig said of her son Tom s, who was killed in a fall from a clifftop: "Instead of his body being out in the broad ocean, there he was on the smooth detached stone. . . . laid out as expertly and as calmly as if twelve women had tended him." Her own farewell to life had the same clear-eyed simplicity: "People will yet walk into the graveyard where I'll be lying; I'll be stretched out quietly and the old world will have vanished." Peig died in 1958, when she was 85. She is buried a short distance from the townland where she was born, above the sea on the Dingle Peninsula, within sight of the Great Blasket Island. Through this American edition, Peig will reach a new international audience. As Eoin McKiernan, President of the Irish American Cultural Institute, notes in his introduction, Peig has the "quality of honesty and sincerity, of life lived at the bone." Long loved in Ireland, this autobiography will now be seen for what it truly is--one of the great heart-cries of the Irish people.Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0815602588
ISBN13:9780815602583
Release Date:October 1974
Publisher:Syracuse University Press
Length:216 Pages
Weight:0.56 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
Sayers and Ferriter
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
My mother was a "Mitchell" who traced her lineage to Peig Sayers and Pierce Ferriter. Next month I will visit Ireland for the first time. In preparation for the trip I have finally read "Peig". I should have done it many years ago. It has helped me to understand the thinking of my mom's relatives in Springfield, Mass so many years ago. Devout Catholics all, they had memories of poverty and famine. America offered them hope for a better life, but they never forgot Ireland.
a Californians view
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
In 45 years, I'd never seen this book in my dad's library, but on the night my mother died - I went in there and pulled it from the shelf and started to read through the tears.I've not too long myself on this bench - figuratively speaking, of course, I hope.
Is maith is cuimhim liom( It is well I remember)
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
I did this book at school in Irish, being really square I liked it.Peig told her story of hardship and poverty with humour,and dignity. It gave real insight into the life of the Irish tennant farmer in the early 19th century, I even used it for my thesis at uni. Good book
Thanks for the Memories!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
I remember reading this book when I was a young girl, going to school in Ireland. Of course, I didn't appreciate it as much then, considering that I had to read it in its original Gaelic language. I am surprised at how I can recall the stories that Peig told. Her story holds great importance, as it describes a way of life that no longer exists in Ireland. I recommend this book to any descendants of Irish immigrants who wish to discover about the lives their past family members lived. The content of this book is quite heartwarming, something that can be appealing to anyone.
every school child should be made read this book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 27 years ago
i've read and re read this book, and think it's wonderful. As i turned each page I was peig sayers of the great blaskets. I ran up the road to school with her and her friend Cait, and my little bones shivered as hers did. I felt her pain when she left dunquinn for the island and felt her joy when she was welcomed to the island and it's people. This book is on the circu, of the schools in ireland, and I always remember my own daughter coming home to me from the dunquin,dingle, great blaskets area, from a school trip and from then on calling me "girl" I was annoyed with her for her familarity, until I learned she was as she called it studying Peigland, and peig called her mother girl. I want to go live on the blaskets islands or sit by Peigs grave and tell her what a wonderful life she had, not a hard one as she imagined with the cruel seas ect., life is much harder here in this big bad world. Peig has touched my life and I have lost the book so many times when friends did not return it. Anytime I go home I go down to Peigland and sit by her grave and dream I am her, off up the road with little Cait to school. What a beautiful story
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