Peadar Chois Fhairrge by Sean Mac Giollarnath (PT143)

Published 1934: First Edition / Hardcover / Very Good Condition / Illustrated throughout / Irish Text

Original two-tone grey and blue cloth with red titles on the cover and spine. 171 very clean and bright pages, light pencil notes on a few pages, previous owners signature on the first free page. Boards slightly rubbed and faded with time and bumped and chipped on the corners consistent with age but remain firm and intact. A very scarce first edition. (PT143)

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Peadar Chois Fhairrge by Seán Mac Giollarnáth

Seán Mac Giollarnáth gave an account of this tale in Peadar Chois Fhairrge: new and old tales told by the late Peadar Mac Thuathaláin , 1934, an account previously published in Béaloideas . What follows is only an apologetic summary of that account. He was born in the Hill in Cois Fharrraige, Co. Galway His family was from the Oughterard area on both sides. His father was a fisherman and a small farmer and his mother was from the Tnúthal family . He was a half-brother and the other died young. He did not like school because he did not speak any English and he would run away so often that his father made him choose between the day and the school. 'Peadar took the day and did not prefer the school any more.'

He did all sorts of work: tilling, fishing, working the turf, tending to lakes. By the time he married a woman from the MacCeide family of Seanaghurran he had a farm, sheep, dairy cows and other livestock. But 15 years later farming had become unpopular. He sold the farm and moved to Galway city to earn his living. He spent some time during the 1914-18 War in London and some time in Scotland . But Galway suited him and his wife because perhaps one in three people in the city at that time spoke Irish and because the people of Cois Fharraige were drawn to the Fatha Bheag where they lived. 'The people of Fatha Bheag had, and still have, a céilí house. It was there that the lore and the storytelling and the stories of the east and west were told' ( Mac Giollarnáth ). He worked every market day in a baker's and flour merchant's shop and enjoyed chatting there with his friends in the evening.

Another job he did was driving cattle east for Galway merchants . It was while he was doing this work in Oranmore that he met Pádraig Mac Pearse and Micheál Breathnach (1881-1908). Breathnach had known him in Cois Fharraige long before that and the two of them took him into the pub. A remarkable event, no doubt!

Although he was good at storytelling, he much preferred to tell tales. This is how Mac Giollarnáth describes his learning process. 'He had an idle winter. There would be a fair and a story in the towns when the men gathered in the céilí house to keep themselves company. The learning that was not available at school was available on the hearth in the house of Máirtín Bhreathnaigh, a weaver in Lochán Beag. It was in his house that Peadar learned the tales, the storytelling and the conciseness of the Irish language. He had a high regard for the Breathnaigh and the author was always on his lips. The weaver was certainly a great storyteller and storyteller, and a learned man, with regard to folklore and the correctness of the Irish language.' And here is part of Mac Giollarnáth 's description of Mac Thuathaláin's own ability: 'The mind of Peadar Mac Thuathaláin absorbed everything that the ear heard or the eye saw and his memory was a permanent, indestructible storehouse. The people, the things, the events that he saw, his mind turned into pictures and he kept these pictures alive and fresh in such a way that when he chose it he could easily place the person, the thing, or the event in his story.' He died at his home in Fatha Bhig in Galway on 30 June 1930.

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