Editing Peig Sayers (section)

=== Island Life ===
Instead, Peig moved to the [[Great Blasket Island]] after her brother arranged for her to marry Pádraig Ó Guithín,<ref name="oxford"/> a fisherman and native of the island, nine years her senior,<ref>{{Cite book |title=Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach |publisher=New Island |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-84840-845-6 |edition=Paperback |location=Dublin}}</ref> on 13 February 1892.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/details-civil/240ef17590494|title=General Registrar's Office|website=IrishGenealogy.ie|access-date=29 March 2017}}</ref> Pádraig and Peig had eleven children, of whom only six survived their mother.<ref name=wom/> Three died in infancy, and an eight year old girl, Siobhán, died from measles.

[[Norwegian people|Norwegian]] [[linguist]] and [[Celtic studies|Celticist]] [[Carl Marstrander]] stayed on the island while studying the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of [[Munster Irish]] in 1907 and later persuaded [[Robin Flower]] of the [[British Museum]] to similarly visit the Blaskets. Flower was keenly appreciative of Peig Sayers' storytelling skills. He recorded her and brought her stories to the attention of the academic world.<ref name="flo">Flower, Robin. The Western Island. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945. New edition 1973.</ref>

After the [[Easter Rising]] of 1916, Peig hung up a framed picture of the 16 executed [[Irish Volunteers]] and [[Irish Citizen Army]] leaders in the family's cottage in Great Blasket island. During a search of the island by the [[Black and Tans]] during the subsequent [[Irish War of Independence]], a terrified Pádraig Ó Guithín ordered his wife to take the picture down before she got them all killed. Even though Peig indignantly refused, the search party did not harm anyone in their family.<ref>Peig Sayers (1962), ''An Old Woman's Reflections'', [[Oxford University Press]]. Translated by [[Seamus Ennis]]. Pages 113–120.</ref>

Pádraig Ó Guithín died in April 1923.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach |publisher=New Island |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-84840-845-6 |edition=Paperback |location=Dublin}}</ref> The remaining children, like many islanders, emigrated to America. <ref>{{Cite book |title=Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach |publisher=New Island |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-84840-845-6 |edition=Paperback |location=Dublin}}</ref>Last to leave was Mícheál, called 'an File’ (The Poet), who sailed in 1929. From then on Peig lived only with her elderly, partially blind brother-in-law, Mícheál.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Peig Sayers: Volume 1: Labharfad le Cach |publisher=New Island |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-84840-845-6 |edition=Paperback |location=Dublin}}</ref>

During the 1930s a Dublin teacher, [[Máire Ní Chinnéide]], who was also a regular visitor to the Blaskets, urged Peig to tell her life story to her son Mícheál. Peig was [[illiterate]] in the Irish language, having received her early schooling only through the medium of English. She dictated her biography to Mícheál, who then sent the manuscript pages to Máire Ní Chinnéide in Dublin. Ní Chinnéide then edited the manuscript for its publication in 1936.

Over several years from 1938 Peig dictated 350 ancient legends, [[ghost stories]], [[Irish folklore|folktales]], and religious stories to Seosamh Ó Dálaigh of the [[Irish Folklore Commission]]<ref name="sullivan"/> (while another source tallies 432 items collected by Ó Dálaigh from her, some 5,000 pages of material).{{sfnp|Briody|2007|pp=468, 466}} Peig had a vast repertoire of tales, ranging from the [[Fenian Cycle]] of [[Irish mythology]] to romantic and supernatural stories.<ref name="Marcus Tanner 2004 Pages 102-103">Marcus Tanner (2004), ''The Last of the Celts'', Yale University Press. Pages 102–103.</ref>

'''Final Years'''

She continued to live on the island until 1942, when she returned to her native place, Dunquin, to live with her son, Mícheál, because there was nobody to look after her in her old age on the island.<ref>Letters from the Great Blasket, Eibhlis Ní Shúilleabháin, p.36, Mercier Press</ref><ref>{{cite news |title="Queen of the Blaskets" in hospital |work=The Irish Times |issue=page 3 |date=9 January 1952}}</ref>

Peig lost her eyesight in the late 1940s. She travelled to Dublin for the first time in 1952 at the age of 81 years, having required hospital treatment there.<ref>{{cite news |title="Queen of the Blaskets" in hospital |work=The Irish Times |issue=page 3 |date=9 January 1952}}</ref>

She later moved to a hospital in [[Dingle]], County Kerry where she died on 8 December 1958 at the age of 85 years.<ref>{{cite news |title=She wrote about the Blaskets |work=The Irish Times |issue=page 1 |date=9 December 1958}}</ref> She is buried in the Dún Chaoin Burial Ground, [[Corca Dhuibhne]], Ireland. All her surviving children except Mícheál emigrated to the United States to live with their descendants in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]].<ref>Marcus Tanner (2004), ''The Last of the Celts'', Yale University Press. Pages 104.</ref>