Was Peig a work of fiction?

kevin65

Someone at work the other day said that Peis Sayers story was part fiction, that she never left the mainland and the the story was based around other people's experiences. Has anyone else ever heard this?

I busted my ass studying Peig for the Junior cert many years ago, feeling sorry for the woman. I feel crushed.:(

byhookorbycrook

No, not fiction, she is well documented as living on the Great Blasket. She was a whinge though and not too well liked.For dignity in the face of hardship, An t-Oileánach is a much better read.

Edited to add, never felt sorry for her, she did more to turn people off Irish than the "tally stick"

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

It was a work of pure ****e.

ChunkyLover_53

50 Shades of Peig

Now there's a stomach churner.

kevin65

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

50 Shades of Peig

Now there's a stomach churner.

Please don't do that, I just had my dinner.

AnonoBoy

Not fiction at all, she really was a total moany auld b*tch.

Knex*

Fiction or not, it was the biggest load of bollocks I ever had the misfortune of having to suffer.

Guill

What's a Peig?

Jenroche

You couldn't have made up the litany of moaning and complaining that was her life. I hate that woman for the two years I had to spend studying that bloody book. She has to be one of the most hated women in Ireland. Who the hell decided that book was suitable for the Irish school curriculum? I want to hunt them down and do painful things to them! :mad:

eth0

Guill wrote: »

What's a Peig?

Clothes Peig

Praetorian Saighdiuir

She was a ride though!

The_Thing

Thankfully I was allowed to give up studying Irish and was allowed by the teacher to read anything apart from comics so whilst my classmates had to suffer at the hands of Peig Sayers I was reading Stephen King's The Stand.

who the fug

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

It was a work of pure ****e.

stop insulting ****e

Zimmerframe

The idiots that tried to revive the Irish language by ramming that shi*e down school kids necks. It must be the worst drivel ever written.

General General

Quentin Tarantino presents Peig Fiction.

Grayson

The_Thing wrote: »

Thankfully I was allowed to give up studying Irish and was allowed by the teacher to read anything apart from comics so whilst my classmates had to suffer at the hands of Peig Sayers I was reading Stephen King's The Stand.

Same here except I had to do other school work. Thankfully I never had to suffer through Peig like everyone else.

Zimmerframe

The_Thing wrote: »

so whilst my classmates had to suffer at the hands of Peig Sayers I was reading Stephen King's The Stand.

All your classmates read a horror book, while you read Stephen King.

ixoy

Never came up for my Leaving Cert . Somehow avoided it.

There are clearly fans though given you can go here to peigbonkers.ie buy Peig t-shirts.
Odd..

D1stant

Guill wrote: »

What's a Peig?

Peig was Eamonn Dunphy's granny. Good granny, not a great granny...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

I was doing the maths earlier on, admittedly after having a few beers, but:

I spent 36 weeks a year at secondary school. And two hours a week doing Irish. So 72 hours of Irish over two years.

Now, discouting the poety and prose and abotu one thrid of that was on Peig.

So 24 hours. A full day. That is a day of my life I waill NEVER get back. NEVER.

The also say that smoking a cigarette takes 5 minutes off your life.

So there you have it: studying Peig had the same effect on my late teenage life as smoking 288 cigaretts.

Bitch.

grey_so_what

She broke my heart that hag.

I will NEVER forget her.

((((

3rdDegree

The_Thing wrote: »

Thankfully I was allowed to give up studying Irish and was allowed by the teacher to read anything apart from comics so whilst my classmates had to suffer at the hands of Peig Sayers I was reading Stephen King's The Stand.

I honestly always thought of Peig as our Delores Claybourne.

FanadMan

General General wrote: »

Quentin Tarantino presents Peig Fiction.

I'd pay to see that.....especially if some drug-crazed psycho riddled Peig with bullets at the end. Imagine the cheers in the cinema here if that happened

Duggys Housemate

By any standards a weird book. A totally encyclopaedic memorisation of the early part of her own life down to minute details about what she ate, when sick, her dreary school days ; followed by ... Oh I married, had ten children, half of em died, one lad fell of a cliff , all in a paragraph.

Melanoma

This book was so boring. I mean I was like a bit nerdy and tried my best to be interested in everything. Not great at languages though. I just felt like they choose a book to emphasise how great we have it now, but forgot that people might just associate the Irish language with desolation, the past.. a terrible past and the effort of understanding rewarded by a most uninspiring biography.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

FanadMan wrote: »

I'd pay to see that.....especially if some drug-crazed psycho riddled Peig with bullets at the end. Imagine the cheers in the cinema here if that happened

I vaguely remember a scene where some idiot blew himself up by intentionally dropping a lit match into a barrel of parafin to see how muc was left. That would make damn good cinema.

Although my chosen director would have to be Eli Roth.

Insect Overlord

Peig herself was illiterate and so she had to dictate her story to her son, Mícheál Ó Guithín, who was editor of the final piece of work.

It has been suggested that he edited parts of the story to suit his own agenda (parts of the story not included, other parts put in a different order, extra emphasis put on suffering, etc). There would also have been elements that the narrator might not have wanted to disclose to her own son.

As such it's not a true auto-biography, but neither is it a work of fiction. It's funny in a way. Similarly enough Tomás Ó Criomhthain's book, An t-Oileánach, and Muiris Ó Súilleabhán's Fiche Bliain Ag Fás, while written by the hands of their authors, could still be criticised as being not entirely honest portrayals of life on the Great Blasket.

Duggys Housemate

I think the Islander sounds far more interesting.

Insect Overlord

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

I vaguely remember a scene where some idiot blew himself up by intentionally dropping a lit match into a barrel of parafin to see how muc was left. That would make damn good cinema.

Although my chosen director would have to be Eli Roth.

I've seen the spot where that house used to stand in Dún Chaoin. It's mentioned in a few other books as well. A tragedy locally, but an interesting little story all the same!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Insect Overlord wrote: »

I've seen the spot where that house used to stand in Dún Chaoin. It's mentioned in a few other books as well. A tragedy locally, but an interesting little story all the same!

You and I must have different definiteions of the word "interesting"!

Insect Overlord

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

You and I must have different definiteions of the word "interesting"!

It's always interesting when a family is blown up in their own home. Amongst other things, obviously.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Insect Overlord wrote: »

It's always interesting when a family is blown up in their own home. Amongst other things, obviously.

Don't remember that bit - but it's possible. Still, a story in which a family being blown up in their own home fails to get a teenager's attention is not doing it;s job.

Insect Overlord

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Don't remember that bit - but it's possible. Still, a story in which a family being blown up in their own home fails to get a teenager's attention is not doing it;s job.

I think it's only mentioned in passing in Peig, to be fair to you. Probably a reference to the funeral or something. I read it last summer and forgot most of it straight after. :pac: A walking tour on the Dingle Peninsula is where I got most of that story.

who the fug

Insect Overlord wrote: »

It's always interesting when a family is blown up in their own home. Amongst other things, obviously.

No just Darwin in action.


Nearest I ever heard me mother swear was talking to her about Peig


Suffice to say as a native speaker from Kerry she didn't have one good word to say about the book, or the fools in Dublin who put it on the curriculum.


So which book do modern teenagers burn in a ritual kind of way after the leaving

it was 2001 when i did my LC, we did an irish book about some fella who moved to the states. or was it england? one of them anyway :rolleyes: no peig

LoYL

who the fug wrote: »

Insect Overlord wrote: »

It's always interesting when a family is blown up in their own home. Amongst other things, obviously.

So which book do modern teenagers burn in a ritual kind of way after the leaving

Lol. Effort. Ugh.

neil_hosey

the irony, people going on and on about peig being about bitching and moaning your life away..

spend 5 minutes in afterhours and you would think you are in the book

Gran Hermano

Striapach ab ea.

uck51js9zml2yt

was more a case of non fiction than fiction. did it in 1985.