Peig Sayers: The creation, content, first edition and rediscovery of the most famous (auto)biography in the Irish language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24917/20811861.22.4Keywords:
Peig Sayers, Blasket Literature, Irish book, Irish language, women's writingAbstract
Peig .i. A scéal féin (Peig. The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island) is a novel about the life of Peig Sayers (1873–1958), a traditional Irish storyteller. Although she grew up in an Irish-speaking family, she was educated in an English-only school and never learnt to read or write in her native language. After an arranged marriage to a resident of the Great Blasket island, she spent most of her adult life there, which was similar to the life of other women from rural areas in the West of Ireland. Sayers was distinguished by her gift of telling folk stories, which became popular on the wave of the Irish cultural revival accompanying the Irish people’s fight for independence. Under the influence of Máire Ní Chinnéide, an activist in the Irish revival movement, Sayers dictated the story of her life to her son Mícheál Ó Guithín. Its publication was facilitated by political circumstances – the construction of the identity of the Free Irish State (1922–1937). This article presents Peig .i. A scéal féin (1936) – its author, content and use in education as well as some of the new ways in which it is employed and interpreted.
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