The home of Tomás Ó Criomthain was restored by the Office of Public Works in 2018. Peig Sayers’s second home is part of accommodation available to rent and of a café on the island. Today, more than 95% of the island, including the old village, form a de facto national park. The Office of Public Works has bought most of the property on the Great Blasket, including the deserted village, in recent decades. It is, perhaps, a commentary on Irish social history that the only two people in Ireland still recognisable by their first names alone are associated with the Blaskets: ‘Peig’ and ‘Charlie.’

Later, in the 1980s, the former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, bought Inishvickillane and behaved like a mediaeval potentate. The most westerly settlement in Ireland was abandoned. The last remaining residents were evacuated on 17 November 1953 at the request of both the Islanders and the government. The second home of Peig Sayers is part of the revitalisation of the Great Blasket (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021) It was a tragic event that led the Islanders ask the government to evacuate them. For many days, the weather stopped his body being taken to the consecrated graveyard across the Blasket Sound in Dunquin. When he became ill, poor weather meant no doctor or priest could reach the island. The death of Seánín Ó Cearnaigh acted as a catalyst in the islanders’ evacuation. The supplies arrived by boat two days later by boat. They had been cut off from the mainland for weeks because of bad weather in April 1947, and sent a telegram to the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, urgently requesting supplies. But the islanders had been asking to be relocated since 1947. The government decided it could no longer guarantee the safety of the remaining population. But increasingly extreme weather often left the islands and islanders cut off. On the Great Blasket, the island population had fallen to 22 by 1953, and the small fishing community mostly lived in primitive cottages perched on the relatively sheltered north-east shore. The former home of Tomás Ó Criomhthain … his work has been compared to Maxim Gorky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021) It was a new understanding that was complimented by comparisons of Tomás Ó Criomhthain with his Russian contemporary Maxim Gorky, placing him within the corpus of European literature of the day. They were stories that should never have been imposed on young teenagers in the 1960s. I began to feel sorry for Peig, with her arranged marriage, her sorrows, her hardships, the children who died without the joys of childhood, the reproaches for her grief and mourning, and the bodies falling out of coffins. Their works in Irish have been translated into English and other languages. These include Peig or Machnamh Seanamhná ( An Old Woman’s Reflections) by Peig Sayers (1939), An tOileánach ( The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain (1929), and Fiche Blian ag Fás ( Twenty Years a-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin (1933). In this climate, a number of books were written in the early 20th century by islanders, recording island traditions and way of life. The islanders were the subject of many anthropological and linguistic studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by writers and linguists including Robin Flower, George Derwent Thomson and Kenneth H Jackson. Young infants were buried without coffins or grave markers in unconsecrated ground (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021) I am typical of my generation when I say I still resent having to read through Peig, and it helped to create many long-lasting negative images of how the Irish language was taught at schools in the 1960s.īut my schoolboy experiences of the Kerry Gaeltacht in Ballinskelligs have left me with a life-long affection for this part of Ireland, and a visit to the Blasket Islands seemed inevitable during last week’s visit to the Dingle Peninsula. Their books continue to be read, and most Irish people are still familiar with the names of Peig Sayers (1873-1958), not matter how negative their memories are of her book, and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

It has been deserted since 1954, but remains a part of Irish literature and cultural identity because of the disproportionate number of islanders whose books were part of the school curriculum for generations of Irish schoolchildren.

The Great Blasket Island is one of the most remote parts of the Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking area of Co Kerry. The Blasket Islands in summer sunshine … an invitation to a Mediterranean experience – but only in summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Peig sayers blasket islands