Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.
Modern Scottish Poetry: An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance 1920-1945 was a poetry anthology edited by Maurice Lindsay, and published in 1946 by Faber and Faber.
The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.
Sydney Goodsir Smith was a New Zealand-born Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots, sometimes referred to as Lallans, and was a major figure of the Scottish Renaissance.
Iain Crichton Smith, was a Scottish poet and novelist, who wrote in both English and Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the Isle of Lewis at the age of two, where he and his two brothers were brought up by their widowed mother in the small crofting town of Bayble, which also produced Derick Thomson. Educated at the University of Aberdeen, Crichton Smith took a degree in English, and after completing his national service in the Army Educational Corps, went on to become a teacher. He taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton and Oban from 1952, retiring to become a full-time writer in 1977, although he already had many novels and poems published.
Angus Peter Campbell is a Scottish award-winning poet, novelist, journalist, broadcaster and actor. Campbell's works, which are written mainly in Scottish Gaelic, draw heavily upon both Hebridean mythology and folklore and the magic realism of recent Latin American literature. In an interview prior to his death, Sorley MacLean, who is with Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair one of the two greatest writers in the history of Scottish Gaelic literature, called Campbell one of the best living Scottish poets in any language.
Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg, also known as Clan Donald South, Clan Iain Mor, Clan MacDonald of Islay and Kintyre, MacDonalds of the Glens (Antrim) and sometimes referred to as MacDonnells, is a Scottish clan and a branch of Clan Donald. The founder of the MacDonalds of Dunnyveg is Eòin Mòr Tànaiste Mac Dhòmhnaill, a son of Iain Mic Dhòmhnaill and Margaret Stewart of Scotland, daughter of King Robert II. Members of the clan actually pronounced and spelled their name M'Connall due to the Gaelic pronunciation of the name Mac Domhnuill thus giving rise to the surname McConnell and its variants. While historically recognised as a clan by the Court of the Lord Lyon, it is now an armigerous clan as it no longer has a chief. The last chief was Sir James MacDonald, 9th of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg or Clan Donald South, who died in London in 1626.
Derick Smith Thomson was a Scottish poet, publisher, lexicographer, academic and writer. He was originally from Lewis, but spent much of his life in Glasgow, where he was Professor of Celtic at the University of Glasgow from 1963 to 1991. He is best known for setting up the publishing house Gairm, along with its magazine, which was the longest-running periodical ever to be written entirely in Gaelic, running for over fifty years under his editorship. Gairm has since ceased, and was replaced by Gath and then STEALL. He was an Honorary President of the Scottish Poetry Library, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. In June 2007, he received an honorary degree from Glasgow University.
The Scottish Gaelic Renaissance is a continuing movement concerning the revival of the Scottish Gaelic language and its literature. Although the Scottish Gaelic language had been facing gradual decline in the number of speakers since the late 19th century, the number of young and fluent Gaelic speakers is quickly rising. A similar trend is also taking place in the language revival of Canadian Gaelic in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
Breacleit is the central village on Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Breaclete is within the parish of Uig. Although the village name comes from a geographical feature rather than a steading it is generally believed to be an ancient settlement. The oldest building in the village is the thatched water mill by the shore of Loch Risay which was restored in the 1990s. It was formerly a tiny crofting and fishing settlement of just 12 crofts surrounding the natural harbour of Loch Beag but crofting has now ceased and holiday homes have taken over. The earliest clearly mapped reference is on Murdoch MacKenzie's first Admiralty chart surveyed in 1748. In 1851 J.M. MacKenzie, the Chamberlain to the estate owner Sir James Matheson, proposed that all the tenants of the village were to be evicted and sent to North America on the emigrant ship the SS Marquis of Stafford. This plan was not fully carried through however but it still had a great effect on the village leaving it with a population of just three families. This population was later supplemented through evictions elsewhere notably the clearances of Hacklete and Barragloum villages in the south of Great Bernera.
The Association for Scottish Literary Studies (ASLS) is a Scottish educational charity, founded in 1970 to promote and support the teaching, study and writing of Scottish literature. Its founding members included the Scottish literary scholar Matthew McDiarmid (1914–1996). Originally based at the University of Aberdeen, it moved to its current home within the University of Glasgow in 1996. In November 2015, ASLS was allocated £40,000 by the Scottish Government to support its work providing teacher training and classroom resources for schools.
Lines Review was a Scottish poetry journal founded by the publisher Callum Macdonald in 1952. Its original editorial board included the Scottish poets Sydney Goodsir Smith, Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, Sorley MacLean and Denis Peploe. Latterly its individual editors included the poets Robin Fulton and Tessa Ransford. Tessa Ransford, the founder of the Scottish Poetry Library, published the final issue in 1998.
Ian Burgham is a poet. He is the son of Lt. Cmdr. Allen Russell Burgham, DSC,MiD,CD. and Jean Wallace. He has lived in New Zealand and Scotland, but currently resides in Canada. He spent his formative years in Kingston, Ontario and graduated from Queen's Universityin 1972. While at Queen's he studied poetry and poetic process with Professor George Whalley, poet, writer and well-known Coleridge scholar. In 1973, Burgham moved to New Zealand where he taught at Wellington College. In 1975 he moved to Scotland to attend Edinburgh University, taking an M. Litt. degree in Blake studies. His thesis, written under the supervision of Professor Michael Phillips, focussed on William Blake's theory of imagination and the origins of Blake's poetry and theories.
Scottish Gaelic literature refers to literary works composed in the Scottish Gaelic language, which is, like Irish and Manx, a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. Gaelic literature was also composed in Gàidhealtachd communities throughout the global Scottish diaspora where the language has been and is still spoken.
Walter Perrie is a Scottish poet, author, editor and critic. He has also published under the pseudonym Patrick MacCrimmon.
Gairm was a Scottish Gaelic quarterly magazine founded in 1951 by Derick Thomson, and Finlay J. MacDonald. Its first issue was published in Autumn 1952. MacDonald served as an editor until 1964; Thomson remained present for decades until it ceased publication in 2004, producing just over 200 issues in total.
Dàin do Eimhir is a sequence of sixty poems written in Scottish Gaelic by Sorley MacLean. Considered MacLean's masterpiece, the poems deal with intertwining themes of romantic love, landscape, history, and the Spanish Civil War, and are among the most important works ever written in Scottish Gaelic literature.
