Turf Cutting & Sean Nós Singing Sisters of Kilcummin, Co. Galway, Ireland 1989

Nan, Nora and Sara Grealish reflect on their childhood and growing up in Connemara.

Nan (Áine), Nóra and Sarah Ghriallais were born and raised in Muiceanach Idir Dhá Sháile in the Connemara Gaeltacht, a region known for its song, dance and music.

The sisters are renowned singers and have won multiple singing competitions at Oireachtas na nGael, Oireachtas na Gaeilge and Corn Uí Riada. Nan in particular is famed for her distinctive singing style.

Coming from a family of thirteen children, their parents Máire Cheaitín and Pádhraic Griallais were both singers and the home was where they learned sean nós songs and how to sing them. As Nan puts it

We had the sean nós from the cradle...it just came automatically.

Like their contemporaries and generations before them, the Griallais sisters emigrated to Boston in search of work when they finished school. Nan and Sarah also spent time in England. All three returned to raise their families here in Connemara.

Their father was a boatman who brought turf to the Aran Islands and further afield. After school, the sisters worked together to harvest turf and carry it up to the lorry which would transport it to the boat. Their only brother was among the younger children of the family, so the girls grew up doing jobs on the farm and at home. As Nóra explains,

Anything that had to be done, we had to do it.

Growing up in this remote part of the west in an era when an abundance of food was not a given, Nan recalls that their father’s profession meant that his large family always had enough,

We were never hungry.

This episode of 'I Live Here' was broadcast on 21 January 1989. The producer was Anne McCabe.

'I Live Here' is a series of documentaries about well known people who have a strong attachment and commitment to their home places and how the people, personalities and physicality of their native landscapes influenced in their lives and work.

First broadcast on 21 January 1989, it consisted of twenty programmes aired over twelve months.