She describes herself as being an instrument in the hands of the divine in order to do that. So when death gores her, she calls on the Virgin for strength to wash and clean her son, Tomas and lay him out for death. She recalls her grandmother always telling her to call on God when she’s in trouble. Almost every salutation, every wish and farewell is about God directing her to the right path. At all times Peig’s hope kept her up, and her faith. Sentiment was often borne alone and internally. Peig herself speaks of having to control her feelings. Acceptance or that kind of silent resignation was key to life and it permeates the book.
#Peig irish book full
There are many references to women having to pull themselves together, to reconcile themselves to service, to an unwanted marriage, emigration, the deaths of so many of their infants - Peig’s mother lost nine children and never recovered to full health again and this woman would have survived the famine. And the only place they had agency if they had any at all was in the home. What wonder, in such a hardened and poverty-stricken world where women were the adhesive, the called upon figures intrinsic to the community's survival, if they crumbled so would it. Incidentally, so often throughout the book, there are references to rigid, coarsened women indifferent to kindness and a torment to their husbands. Peig could have been my great-grandmother with her black shawl and clay pipe, her dead husband, lost babes and perceived heart of stone. That said, I found the book very interesting, so much of it resonated with me as these were my ancestors, too who lived an extremely harsh life, albeit by the sea in Ballycroy, Co. By virtue of the fact that the woman was a Seanchai, I’m curious about the degree to which some of her tales might be embellished for the reader. Brian McMahon in his introduction say’s ‘that to convey the tone and spirit of the original of this ‘simple’ but ‘moving’ autobiography I have tried to ‘imagine’ how she would have told her story’ - so a woman’s words are not great or significant or fascinating, they’re simple, moving and ripe for reinvention by much more creative men. While it’s a miracle that a woman’s personal history was preserved at all - and Peig was unique in that sense being a Seanchai and contributing an inordinate amount of material to the folklore commission - it grates that her reminiscences are curated by men.
In essence, the true spirit of the woman’s life seems to have been diminished and reconditioned in a way, so through that tarnished mirror of masculinist historical archive, we kind of get an inappreciable sense of this vibrant, enigmatic and complex woman.
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First of all, her story was dictated to her son in her native Irish, composed/written down by him and then further edited by Maire Ni Chinneide for publication, it was translated into English and further edited for use as a mandatory text for teaching Irish on the secondary school curriculum, and that, according to historian Finn Dwyer, was modified to reflect the Free State’s version of the quintessential Irish woman. So, there’s a disconnect from the get-go and an almost fivefold detachment to contend with in this autobiography. Like Socrates, she never wrote down a word. I’ve been thinking about varying degrees of detachment recently, particularly in terms of femininity and womanhood and specifically with regard to resoldering the links by reading more women, to forge new bonds with femininity and weave the threads of a female genealogy. I will leave the stories from that island for you to hear through the voice of the great story-teller. He brother arranged her marriage to a man from one of the Blasket islands. And it was a future that saw major upheaval in Ireland, the seeds of which were sown in the unrest she describes so well. The important issues of the day - memories of the famine that her parents endured and the ethics of stealing food to stay alive, the Land League, evictions, and emigration - are all interwoven into the life of a young girl as she looks to the future. She remembered that theft years later when she was seventeen on her return home after four years in service in Dingle. When she stole a piece of sweet cake from an old woman in a smoke-filled cottage she knew, as she said, that Someone was watching. It is so poignant and emotionally touching to go back to 1877 and read of a little four year old girl who can't wait to get to school so that she can have her own book filled with coloured pictures. It really needs to be read in Irish, using this translation for reference if you need it, and then the distant voice of your Irish identity will come to you from nearly 150 years ago. I loved it when I studied for the Leaving Cert in 1967 and I still love it.
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