![]() ![]() ![]() She had come to the city the day before by ambulance from Tralee. On Wednesday, January 9th, 1952, The Irish Times carried a story about Peig's first visit to Dublin. Peig is so synonymous with Kerry that it comes as a surprise to discover that she received visitors in Dublin on this day 66 years ago, aged 81. “The OPW is preparing to seek quotes from suitably qualified professionals to assess potential locations on the island for toilet facilities.If you’re familiar with the name Peig Sayers the first thing that probably pops into your head is an image of a woman in a shawl, followed by one of the Great Blasket island, in Co Kerry.įamously, or infamously, it was Peig who wrote a mournful memoir that a generation of Irish people (including me) were required to study in Irish class. “At present, toilet facilities are provided on some ferry boats landing visitors to the island. “It is absolutely outrageous that this is happening because the State won’t install toilets on an island it actually promotes.”Ī spokesperson for the Office of Public Works (OPW) said: “Provision of public toilets is an ongoing challenge given the unique nature of the island. Peig Sayers lived on the island until 1942. “Peig Sayers’ homes on the islands are important landmarks in our cultural and social landscape and the fact that one of them is being used as a toilet is, frankly, disgusting. “The OPW needs to stop talking about installing toilets on the island and just get on with it. “This is just beyond ridiculous, and pretty disgusting,” Kerry County Council councillor Brendán Fitzgerald told the Irish Examiner. ![]() ![]() Nearly five years later, the OPW still says it is planning to install public toilets. Tourism at the island has rocketed in recent years, with up to 1,000 people per week being ferried to the islands at high season in the summer months by different operators.įollowing calls for toilets by local councillors in November 2017, the OPW said it was planning to install them. Máire Ní Dhálaigh, of the OPW-Failte Ireland-Department of Heritage’s €2.9m Blasket Centre on the mainland across from the island, last year described Peig as “the Netflix of the time”. Her autobiography, which was published in 1936 and was Leaving Certificate Irish curriculum reading until 1995, detailed her life and the hardships she endured on the island. One, where she lived with husband Pádraig Ó Gaoithín and his family, is now a ruin, and the other - which she lived in after her husband died until she left the island with her son in 1942 - is a privately owned holiday rental cottage. Peig Sayers, who died in 1958, lived in two homes during the near-50 years she spent on the island. “We have heard there are plans to build a pier on the island but, to be honest, we think they would be better off first installing better facilities for tourists." “There are no toilets, and there should be, and there are also no signs warning visitors about the dangers of being too close to the seals,” Mr Montgomery said. It was one of two to die that we know of.” The couple were so concerned about what they say has been going on on the island that they recently wrote to the OPW to draw their attention to the issues. “We witnessed one man throw a seal cub into the water, then take it out and hold it up for a selfie taken by his wife. “We are, however, more worried about what day trippers are doing to seals. “But we don’t blame people because they have nowhere else to go. Netherlands-born Ms de Haas said: “We witnessed people regularly using the ruins as toilets. Peig Sayers' home on the Great Blasket Island. The couple, who left the island on Tuesday after starting work there as holiday home caretakers in April, also say tourists are endangering the lives of seals in the island’s famous seal colony. But the island, which has neither electricity nor water mains, doesn’t have public toilets.Īs a result, tourists use ruins - which include the first home Peig lived in when she arrived on the island that the OPW has owned since 2009 - as toilets instead. ![]()
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