Peig’s recollections were never written down but dictated to others, and in the process often edited or shortened. Flaherty (Man of Aran) is one of the three towering figures that became celebrated by the late Gaelic Revival. Mór may be viewed at a local variant of the Cailleach, the divine hag of winter.Peig Sayers, together with Tomás Ó Chriomhthain (The Islandman) and Robert J. Over the years the name Large House, an tigh mór, might have become confused with the name of the goddess Mór. Since his constituency, the dead, came from the length and breadth of Ireland, his house had to be a large one, in Irish mór. Donn was, according to some traditions, the god of the underworld, the god of death. 10Īccording to Ó Conchúir, Tigh Mhóire might sometimes be called “Tigh Dhoinn” (Donn’s House), for her husband. 9 The story also is presented in the introduction to Curtin’s Hero Tales of Ireland (1894). In the video here, Ó Conchúir translates from the Irish of Thirty Hundreds of Gree, by Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha. The author also narrates a local legend in our page on the Gate of the Cow. And she stopped and exclaimed: ‘How great Ireland is!’ Then after a while she got a call of nature, and she relieved herself and the streams of water burrowed so deeply in the ground that they formed banks and dikes that can be seen today.” 7ĭoncha Ó Conchúir (1909-2004) was a author who was considered the foremost authority of his time 8 on the folklore and archaeology of Chorca Dhuibhne, the Dingle Peninsula. She could see as far as the McGillycuddy’s Reeks, the highest mountains in Ireland. “And then she looked around and wondered at the expanse of Ireland. From this came the vernacular phrase that indicates a great distance, “as far as Tigh Mhóire from Donaghadee” ( Ó Dhomhnach Diagh go Tigh Mháire). Down that is about as far away in Ireland as one can get from Tigh Mhóire. He had earlier been spirited away to Donaghadee, a town in Co. This story, as translated by Doncha Ó Conchúir in the video (right), explains the ridges and furrows created when Mór was walking the hills near her house on a visit to Donn, her husband. 6 There is another folkloric tradition of Mór, different from that related above by Westropp. Archaeologists understand this as an earthen bank, around 30 meters (98 feet) in diameter, with traces of an internal fosse, perhaps a ritual enclosure from the early Bronze Age. In the hills above Tigh Mhóire is another monument, the Ditch (or Dike) of Mór, associated with the same legendary personage. Local author Doncha Ó Conchúir retells stories of Mór (1980). It contains what may be a prehistoric tomb, a fragment of an early cross-slab, and Uaigh an Spannigh (the Spanish Grave), reputedly the grave of Prince d’Ascoli, son of Phillip II of Spain, lost in a shipwreck of the Spanish Armada of 1588. Tigh Mhóire has been described an “an ancient burial ground,” 4 but it may also be a calluragh, an old cemetery for unbaptized infants. In the tale she is undoubtedly a rain-cloud heroine.” 3 She had three sons, and grew wealthy, and lived at ‘Tivorye’ (Teach Mhoire) hut or dolmen. “The site is very noble, with its beautiful outlook along the great brown and purple hunks of Mount Eagle and Marhin, and across the fierce currents of the Sound, and southward from the Blaskets to the peaks of Skellig…A legend of the Head tells how Mor, wife of Lear, landed at Dunmore Head, her husband going to the North. Westropp noted the ruins and one of the legends: Hotspots will allow you to explore the scene from four different positions. 2 Her home in Dún Chaoin is visible behind the old stones of Tigh Mhóire in the virtual-reality environment (left). Peig Sayers, who wrote of her life on nearby Great Blasket Island where she moved after her marriage, was once required reading for every student in Ireland. This unexcavated and largely undocumented ancient monument in the hills outside the village of Dún Chaoin (Dunquin) is connected in folklore with two different legends of powerful women. It was no accident of geography that Peig Sayers choose to place Tigh Mhóire (Mór’s House) within the first paragraph of her autobiography.
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