Simon O’Connor of MoLI told The Journal: “We wanted to present an exhibition on Peig for years, since before the museum opened – you could say Peig was a glint in our eye.”
Now a new exhibition – Into the Island – at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), which will run until February 2023, aims to reinvigorate interest in Sayers’ work, as well as shine a light on the recordings of the Folklore Commission, which captured the stories of Irish people in the first half of the twentieth century. Her own father was a storyteller, and clearly Sayers picked up that gift too. Though born in Co Kerry, Sayers married a Great Blasket Island native Pádraig Ó Guithín at the age of 19 and moved to the island. Sighs and groans would accompany any mention of that book.īut, as anyone who’s looked beyond Peig the book will know, there was a huge amount to Sayers that her Leaving Cert reputation obscured. Of course, you could also be remembered fondly as the one poet or writer whose words are still recited by people decades on.īut it’s arguable that the storyteller and seanchaí, Peig Sayers, who died in 1958, was one of those whose appearance on the Irish syllabus left her much maligned by many of those who studied her.Įven when this journalist was in school, a few years after Sayers’ book Peig was removed from the syllabus, the ghost of her reputation remained. IT CAN BE a blessing and a curse to be featured on the Leaving Cert syllabus – for years afterwards, students might remember your work as a source of frustration.
0 kommentar(er)
