Joyless Peig Sayers’ work won’t be part of my book collection

TIM ‘Boomer’ Carroll is a friend of mine. A Boston-Irish firefighter, he is. Don’t ask me what the ‘Boomer’ stands for. Something sporting, probably. Boomer loves Ireland. Starting with its literature.

He’s a big fan of Myles na gCopaleen. But it’s not just literature. He’s done the Wicklow Way and no doubt any day now will do the Wild Atlantic Way with his wife, Suzi. Boom once visited the Dun Chaoin Heritage Centre in Kerry commemorating Peig Sayers. This is one of the better heritage centres around the country, at the heart of some of most fascinating tours visitors can take. Boom’s visit, as a result, was very interesting. You do get, do you not, that what follows is neither a criticism of the Heritage Centre nor of any other aspect of present-day Kerry?

Here’s the thing, though. Boomer emerged into the glorious Kerry sunshine, surveyed the magnificent surrounding scenery and delivered himself of a judgment. “Peig Sayers was single-handedly responsible for the Irish diaspora,” he said.

Nobody argued with him. Of course, those who preserve the legend of Peig, who lived on the Blasket Islands for some of her life before dying on the mainland in 1958, lovingly report how, at the end of a night’s story-telling, Peig would draw the ashes over the turf in the hearth to keep the life in the fire until morning, while reciting a prayer.

“I preserve the fire as Christ preserves all. Brigid at the two ends of the house, and Mary in the centre,” Peig woukd intone. “The three angels and the three apostles who are highest in the Kingdom of Grace, guiding this house and its contents until day.”

Ah, here. I mean, really. Of course it ill behoves any of us to jeer at the reverence of our ancestors. (Which won’t stop those in 2080 doing it, when they’re told that, in defiance of all the scientific wisdom in the world at our disposal, through Google, a substantial minority of the 2014 population managed to put their faith in crystals as a way of healing whatever ailed them.) But don’t tell me that Peig’s prayer is high culture. Just don’t, all right? It’s up there with crystals in terms of blind faith, but errs on the side of grandiosity. If you think about it, why would the three apostles highest in the Kingdom of Grace be hanging around a cabin in furthest Kerry where St Brigid was already doing bi-location, when the person praying to them didn’t even bother to know their names? It is recorded that, as a storyteller, “Peig would at once switch from gravity to gaiety, for she was a light-hearted woman, and her changes of mood and face were like the changes of running water.” This may be true, but it sure as hell was not true in the book about her life to which countless secondary school students were subjected in their search for a Leaving Cert. Gaiety there was none in that book. Gravity, however, was plentiful in it. From start to finish, it was the saga of a woman put upon by fate, tortured by destiny, plagued by catastrophe, unappreciated by God and tired out with the miseries visited upon her.

Had she lived to the present day, Joe Duffy would have loved Peig. He’d have located her, got her on line 3 and encouraged her through every death and disaster with his characteristic little moans of detached sympathy. But Liveline would have had her on only once, because even the misery-addicted cconstant listenership to that programme would have responded to her autobiography by texting Joe to say she should get over herself and get a life.

Yet it has now emerged that the book of her life is one of those lovingly preserved down all the decades by Irish people. People who today are hooked on Kindle and would not dream of buying a physical book, nonetheless have a dog-eared copy of Peig on their shelves, perhaps to remind them of how awful school was, back in the day. These days, kids actively look forward to going back to school. Signs on it, they don’t have to study Peig’s account of unremitting misery and write essays in Irish peppered with Seanfhocail letting on to find wit and wisdom in a book signally lacking either. Not having to suffer Peig — on its own — must radically improve the experience of second level education. Even the odd bit of cyber bullying would be easier to bear than the cold wet stones of her prose.

It is interesting, though, that so many people hang on to their schoolbooks long after those schoolbooks have any relevance. Interesting, too, that few of those who retain their schoolbooks can point to even one good reason for so doing. People interested in history tend to keep their school history books and similarly former students with a love for poetry preserve the collections of verse they had in fifth or sixth year, but lots of people just fail to throw out their schoolbooks and never look at them again. On the other hand, those who abandon their schoolbooks don’t seem to regret it, later. Obsessive book-hoarders like me have moments where we curse ourselves for the loss of specific volumes, most of them of no intrinsic value. My older sister used to col lect the big solid hardback annuals associated with the Girl comic, their bright red covers featuring a drawing of a girl with flowing hair. So hooked was I on them that I could tell you on which side of a page within one of those annuals was a story about two skinny young British brothers, one a naturalist, the other an actor: David and Peter Attenborough. The Girl annual account of the beautiful Vivienne Leigh and her romantic husband, Sir Laurence Olivier had a drawing of their faces, one above the other, smiling out at the reader. In addition to the features, the annuals had stories about ballerinas and ice-skaters, hand-drawn. These I slavishly copied at the time with the result that, today, I couldn’t draw you a picture of one of my own cats, but could run you up a version of a ballerina in mid-plie, no bother.

Somewhere along the line, our collection of Girl annuals disappeared. I blame my sister. She blames me. Along with them went my father’s Second World War Atlas, with its groups of circles, a bit like the Audi logo, indicating the location of oil fields. I grieve for all of them immoderately. Indeed, I would pay good money to anybody who wants to get rid of their Girl annuals or WWII atlas.

But Peig’s book? Forget it. I wouldn’t offer you a euro for even a pristine first edition that I could flog at a profit. Couldn’t bear to have the dreary old crone near me in any form. Boomer Carroll is right: Peig makes The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire seem like light reading.

It was the saga of a woman put upon by fate, tortured by destiny, plagued by catastrophe