In Memory of Sorley
The word came electronically early on Monday, November 25th--first from Scotland to a cousin in North Carolina then globally to the rest of us via MacleanNet. "Thathar am bas aig Somhairle MacGillEain ann an Ospadal Raigmhor, Inbhir Nis an deidh tinnis goirid. Bha e bliadhna dhaois." (Sorley MacLean has died in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness after a brief illness. He was 85 years old.) For those of us who knew and loved his poetry, it was a message we knew would come one day; but we had hoped for more time from him. Time for Stockholm to wake up and award him the Nobel Prize for Literature; time to actually meet him or hear him read his poetry; or even time for him to write one more poem. No more time; it was done.
Sorley MacLean was born on October 26, 1911 in the village of Osgaig on the island of Raasay, the long narrow island which lies between Skye and the Scottish mainland. He was raised in the Gaelic language, beginning his study of English at age six when he started school. His childhood was steeped in Celtic music. His father, John MacLean was a piper as was an uncle, who played pibroch. His paternal grandmother and an aunt were Gaelic singers.
MacLean went to school in Portree on the island of Skye and later to the University of Edinburgh, where he took his degree with honors in English literature. He began writing poetry in English while at the University and in the early 1930's he wrote a poem, The Heron, in Gaelic and then translated it to English. He thought it was a better poem than any he had written in English. Because of that and, he has said, for "patriotic reasons" he ceased to write his poetry in English and destroyed his previous English poems.
Sorley MacLean became a teacher, first in Tobermory on Mull and later in Ross, on Skye and in Edinburgh and remained in that profession all his working life. He never aspired to be a full-time professional poet, certainly a practical choice for a Depression-era poet who only wrote in Gaelic. This choice also gave him the luxury of writing from inspiration and great passion and the time to take as long as he needed to find just the right words.