#Pheig sayers full#
"Peig was the Netflix of the time," says Ní Dhálaig, outlining a different side to Sayers' legacy, one of a full house where friends and neighbours would gather to be entertained. Heading home for Corca Dhuibne, a homeplace she shares with the great storyteller, Ní Uallacháin makes for the Blasket Centre, where she speaks with Máire Ní Dhálaigh, who sets about righting a long-held wrong. She filled her brief well," remarks a clearly-awed Ní Uallacháin.
One of the documentary's real standout moments, though, comes when existing recordings of Peig's storytelling are played from reel-to-reel tape, revealing a raspy, colourful voice that betrays a natural orator. Pictures of a broadly-smiling old woman, taking obvious joy in speaking with others, cast her in a new light. It's one thing to see old pictures and read tales that reinforce perceptions of Sayers as a doom-sayer, especially when set against excerpts of others' work satirising her life and legacy.īut when Ní Uallacháin steps into the archives at the National Folklore Collection at UCD, history springs to life.
A constant of the documentary, in fact, is questioning her suitability for the syllabus in the first place - a decision attributed to the early Irish governments' attempts at placing an established Irish canon in schools, as well as selective interpretation on her son Maidhc's part when writing stories down. It was never Sayers' intention to be placed on the curriculum in the first place, of course. Many people of a certain vintage point to her writing as a deterrent from learning Irish ("That bitch ruined my life!", exclaims one person, in a story).
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