For this episode of the podcast, I hope to enter into an exploration of Traveller culture and identity, and I’m honoured to be joined by David Joyce an advocate for the Traveller community who has worked as both a barrister and a solicitor, and Áine Furey, a singer, musician, tour guide and alumna of the Department of Irish Folklore here at UCD. As a minority group however, Ireland’s Travellers they have long-faced discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity, and are often reported as the subject of explicit prejudice in Irish society. They’ve also long been renowned as singers, musicians and storytellers who brought news, tales, songs and music from townland to townland, parish to parish and county to county as they travelled around Ireland. Historically, Travellers were called Tinkers, a reference to their trade as tinsmiths, and they also made a living through engaging with the settled community by buying and selling animals, or through seasonal farm labour. Irish Travellers, known in their own language as Mincéirs or Pavees and in Irish called ‘An Lucht Siúil or, ‘The Walking People’, are a nomadic ethnic minority in Ireland with a distinct history, culture and identity. See moli.ie for details.īlúiríní Béaloidis 37 is online now, I hope you'll join Pádraig, Éilís and I as we ask 'who was that Peig Sayers'? This podcast also marks the launch of Thar Bealach Isteach / Into the Island, a nine month collaborative exhibition between MoLI and the NFC, which looks at Peig Sayers and the Blasket Island storytelling tradition. Pádraig Ó Héalaí, in the beautiful surrounds of the Museum of Literature Ireland and for the first time in front of a live studio audience - something which was a great pleasure for me personally! Thanks to my guests Éilís and Pádraig, to our friends at MoLI for taking such good care of us on the night and especially to all who came along in person and made the evening so pleasant! Now, nearly sixty-five years after her death, we hope to provide a platform through which her tales might find a new audience, one which, it is hoped, may find in her a source of inspiration and insight.įor episode 37 of Blúiríní, I was honoured to have been joined by Dr. This green bench where she used to do the studying will be a domicile for the birds of the wilderness, and the little house where she used to eat and drink, it's unlikely there'll be a trace of it there."įor this episode of Blúiríní, instead of focusing on one aspect of tradition, we for the first time dedicate our explorations to one individual Mairéad ‘Peig’ Sayers who, by her artistry and mastery as a storyteller in the oral tradition, skilfully managed to express the wisdom of the many in the wit of the few, and yet whose printed autobiographies (as Irene Lucchitti notes in an article in Folklore and Modern Irish writing) ‘experienced a decline in reputation, suffering critical disdain and schoolyard ridicule in equal measure’. A person here and a person there will say, maybe, 'Who was that Peig Sayers?' but poor Peig will be the length of their shout from them. Someone else will have pastime out of my work when I'm gone on the way of truth. "Long as the day is, night comes, and alas, the night is coming for me too.
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