Peig Sayers

I did the LC in 1992, that might have been the last (or second last) year that Peig was on the syllabus.

Did she not shove apple cakes under her armpits as a girl to hide them, or steal them, or something?

She smoked a clay pipe and lost a whole hape of childer.

Left in 92 as well. I believe some people in my class were struggling with it. I was playing inkwell golf with the rest of the lads doing Fail Irish (there were three grades in my school - honours, pass, and shut up down the back).

Watching this on "The End" got me through the tough years of Peig reading. It was an endurance test.

I thought one of our teachers mentioned that her first draft mentioned that she married this guy and then never mentioned him again in the book. And that it was an editorial decision to add a few sentences about her gra for him. Apparently she could be a bit more interesting in story telling/singing but her own life story is a dirge of the highest order.

Still want to know who has the copyright and how did it end up on the leaving when it was generally acknowledge to be a pile of steaming

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Peig dictated her stories to her son, Micheál "An File" Ó Guithín. He edited the story into what we now see in the book.

There is truth in that, but there was another editor, Máire Ní Chinnéide. Filtered twice, it is possible that the final book was not a fair reflection of her personality. But she didn't have an easy life - nobody living in the Blaskets did - and she was entitled to tell people how tough it was.

It has been suggested that he left out a lot of his mother's more interesting tales to suit the image he wanted to portray.

The better material ended up in another book, Beatha Pheig Sayers.

I suspect that I am one of a very small group, in that I read Peig voluntarily. It wasn't a set text in my schooldays (which were so long ago that Peig could have been counted as newly-published).

Tomás Ó Criomhthan's "An tOileánach" was already famous at that point so the template wasn't a very exciting one.

Ó Criomhthain did tell of some happy times as well as hardship.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-blasket-bore-1.552077

Links to stuff behind a paywall, and I haven't paid.

The books were written for historians, linguists and antiquarians, and not for mass study by teenagers.

Arguable. One of their purposes was to provide a resource for those learning Irish. But I don't think there was any presumption that they would become school texts for such a diverse group.

Adams was never a member of the IRA though Femme Fatale.

I'd to do a play called "Gafa" which involved a youngfella called Eoghan banging smack up his arm and turning into a hopeless addict. Then another one called "An Lasair Choille" which was about a slow fella being manipulated by an old cripple.

Are there any happy Irish texts at all?

The bit that stuck in my memory was "cleamneas agus posadh" (think that's right)- the matchmaking scene. Seemed fecking archaic even then. I still remember one particular paedophile Irish teacher I had (we only discovered this about him years later) cooing approvingly about this one

{Not all my Irish teachers were paedophiles, some were violent psychopaths or control freaks- wonder why I never learned to love the language?}

I did the LC in 1992 and like everyone else in the class hated that miserable aul biddy with a passion.

It would have put anyone off trying to learn the language, who gave a fook about her and her life on an island, it had zero to do with trying to learn irish.

We had a book for the Inter Cert which was just as bad, don't know how to spell it but it was called eoghnainn na nean or something.

Hownowcow wrote: »

I can completely understand this. As someone who liked the Irish language I thought it was an appalling book to foist on anyone. To me it is just so depressing, a whingebag aul wan droning on and on. It wasn't as if educators were stuck for choice if they wanted writers from the Blaskets. Muiris O'Suilleabhain and Tomas O'Criomhthain were far superior.

I went to a Christian Brothers school but it wasn't a brother who destroyed my interest in the language, it was a violent lay teacher. You've awakened memories, I actually feel a bit angry now.

I cant speak a word of Irish and was always very anti saving the Irish language for loads of reasons. They foisted that stupid book on us, the teachers were usually terrible but the main reason was that you had to conform to a certain view of being Irish to speak Irish. It was like a fiddle playing, GAA loving, FF sporting culchie concept. Thats the way it was. You couldnt on the other hand, like going to football games ( soccer AH), Rock music, the BEEB, Granham Greene and speak Irish which is daft. Of course irish is going to die with this type of attitude or attract oddballs and diehards of a certain persuasion.

However, after travelling to over 30 nations where everybody speaks their own language no matter how small the country I've changed my opinion although not about the facts that the Irish language should be not be just for the nutters and claimed by a certain section of society.

Indeed it would have been handy to discuss matters abroad with my other half without others people knowing what we were talking about before we came to a decision in Hotels and restaurants and things. Hopefully things are changing in this regard and I know for instance that my nephews go to an All-Irish speaking school and it seems to be an excellent schoool.