Peig sayers imsges of kerry washington

As if there wasn't enough sadness in Kerry with Fungie's disappearance, along comes Peig Sayers Except that a newly published collection of stories by one of Great .

Irish storyteller. Swedish folklore scholar Bo Almqvist maintains that it would be hard to find Peig Sayers' match as a storyteller anywhere in the world. According to family tradition, the Sayers family was originally of English origin but by the midth century had become completely gaelicised, dispossessed and poor, ekeing out a living in the remote southwest of Ireland.

His own life had been marred by tragedy. He had lived through the Great Famine of the s but after his marriage to Peig Brosnan of Castleisland their first nine children had died in infancy.

This is a photograph of Peig Sayers taken in the s.

The Sayerses then moved to the town-land of Vicarstown, near the village of Dunquin at the westernmost tip of the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, in late Six months later in March their last child was born. She was always known as Peig, after her mother. The Dingle Peninsula was an area of outstanding scenic beauty and, by the time of Peig's birth, one of the last bastions of the native Irish language.

These Irish-speaking areas, called the Gaeltacht, were gradually being eroded by the spread of English. The region was also being eroded by emigration for it was one of the poorest in Ireland and still very much dependent on potatoes as a staple food. America was a magnet for its young people, and there was a long-established process of chain migration whereby emigrant relatives and friends would send the passage money back to other relatives and friends in Ireland.

As the youngest child, Peig was cherished by her parents; she was particularly close to her father whom she described as a quiet, sensible man. When she was seven, the family peace was disturbed by her brother Sean's new wife who came to live with them. Her sister-in-law was bad-tempered and took out her anger on Peig and her father. At age 12, Peig was taken out of school and went to work as a servant for the Curran family who were merchants in the nearby town of Dingle.