The best advice I can give to anyone searching for ancestors, drawing up family trees or just trying to find Who Do You Think You Are is to stick to the five rules of the Genealogical Proof Standard (below). But stop there, check it out, how genuine is it? Can it be backed up with documentary proof? Even then, is it YOUR ancestor or just maybe your ancestor. Just because you are on a certain genealogy website, and you find a name exactly or similar to your ancestor who lived at approximately the same time, do you immediately ‘adopt’ this person into your family tree? Do you check where this information came from? Is it cited? Can you check back to the original birth/baptism/marriage record? Is this information that you are looking at, copied or just plain incorrect? I can understand the excitement of finding a name, a date that resonates, either on a genealogy site or a suggestion from a Facebook ‘friend’. You can find out more about Peig in the RTÉ Archives.‘Fake News’, ‘alternative facts’, conflicting genealogical evidence, whatever title you use, how do you apply it when researching your Kerry ancestors? In other words, what ‘facts’ can you believe in?

Maybe you didn't like reading the book for your Leaving Cert but isn't it about time we let her off the hook for something she had no control over and respected her importance and literary legacy?

The absence of rural, poor womens' voices, however is even more blatant. It is now widely acknowledged that the Irish literary canon has neglected womens' voices.

The photos featured here from Dúchas.ie show Peig laughing with Kenneth Jackson, one of the many scholars who came to listen to her stories. Whilst the book itself, Peig, A Scéal Féin isn't exactly the most uplifting of texts, it's a realistic depiction of a woman who lived a hard life and wasn't afraid to say how tough it was. Kenneth Jackson and Peig Sayersīecause Peig was educated in English, she wasn't literate in her native Irish, her son, Maidhc is thought to have transcribed her book. Of the 10 children Peig gave birth to, only 5 survived. Three died in infancy, her daughter Siobhán died of the measles at the age of eight, and her son Tomás was killed in 1920 when he fell off a cliff while gathering heather. She was 18 and her husband was 12 years her senior. She was born on the mainland and was married into the island by an arranged marriage. Of the 13 children born, Peig was only one of 4 who survived. Peig was one of 13 children born to Tomás and Peig Sayers. Let's have another look at this woman and her legacy. Before Peig became a textbook, a character upon which those who failed to learn Irish could pin their disappointment, she was a renowned storyteller. On this day in 1873, Peig Sayers was christened.

Peig sayers family tree