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Creighton was expelled from the Fine Gael parliamentary party in July 2013 when she defied the Fine Gael party whip by voting against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013.
Peig Sayers struck fear into the hearts of generations of second level students who had to study her account of life on the Great Blasket Islands. An exhibition of photographs from the the Great Blasket Island opens in Killarney tomorrow (30.10.2013) and, by chance, Peig's portrait has pride of place. It gets the usual reaction. People recall the long shadow she cast over their teenage years and they stress the fact that Peig's Ireland was another country, the perceived miserablism of her account making the distance even greater.
It's tempting to regard both as representing a particular sense of 'Irishness,' socially conservative and regressive, the Ireland of long ago. Peig maybe off the syllabus but her spirit lives on in the stance adopted by Creighton. Briseann and dúchas trí shúilabh an chait or, in English, the cats real character breaks out through its eyes. The English translation doesn't quite work as well but Aesop put it more succinctly when he said that the cat's "Nature will out."
El Keegan took the photo. She is a freelance photographer who covers lifestyle and fashion for a range of press titles. Was she thinking of Peig when she composed the photo? Is this a case of projection... a deeply ingrained idea of what conservative Ireland looks like? A case of Briseann and dúchas trí shúilabh an chait?
Fairscin Inise / An Island Portrait
Grianghrafanna den Bhlascaod Mhór / Photographs of The Great Blasket Island 1892 -2010
Roinn Ealaíon, Oidhreachta agus Gaeltachta / Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
Cill Áirne / Killarney
Opening 30.10.2013 @ 6.30pm
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