All About Scotland

A native of Raasay, Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain) (1911-1996) was at the forefront of the 20th century revival of Gaelic poetry. Although he produced his early poetry in English, he soon returned to his ancestral roots and in 1943 produced his masterly collection, Dain do Eimhir, containing his love poetry to the legendary Eimhir of the early Irish sagas. Influenced by traditional Gaelic song and literature, and by the efforts of the other Scottish Renaissance poets like MacDiarmid, MacLean reinvgorated Gaelic as a literary language tradition. His finest poem, Hallaig, concerning the Highland Clearances, appeared in 1977. It, like all his other work, has been translated and issued in bilingual editions to make his poetic genius accessible across the globe.