Peggy Seeger: The US folk legend on Ireland in the 1950s and an incredible life in music
Born in 1935, Peggy Seeger grew up in New York, part of American folk music royalty. Picture: Vicki Sharp.
The first time Peggy Seeger came to Ireland was in the summer of 1956. She was visiting as a companion of Diane Hamilton, the heiress to the Guggenheim dynasty who was travelling around Ireland recording folk singers and collecting trad songs. Over three or four weeks, they visited the McPeake family, Paddy Tunney and Sarah Makem, among other famous Irish traditional music houses.
“Ireland was very different then,” says Seeger. “Parts of it were a century back. There were still towns that had dirt roads running through them, and houses that were below the pavement of the road. Women came out to their half-doors, leaned out of them and talked. I was 21, so you can imagine what that meant to me.”
