More on Makars' Court - Edinburgh Museums

Somhairle MacGill-Eain (1911 - 1996)
Born on the island of Raasay off the east coast of Skye, Somhairle
MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean) was a contemporary and friend of
Robert Garioch at Edinburgh University, where he studied from
1929 to 1933. He followed a career in teaching, becoming
Headmaster of Plockton Seconday School, Wester Ross, where he
remained until his retirement in 1972.
Greatly influenced by the work of Garioch and MacDiarmid, MacLean
was a major force in the literary revival of Gaelic and one of the
finest poets in the language for about 200 years. His work combined
the Gaelic poetic tradition with modem international influences and
the personal and the political, as in Am Boilseabhach (The
Bolshevik):
nan robh againn Alba shaor,
Alba co-shinte ri ar gaol,
Alba gheal bheadarrach fhaoil,
Alba gheal shona laoch…
if we had Scotland tree,
Scotland equal to our love,
a bright spirited generous
Scotland,
a beautiful happy heroic
Scotland...
David Daiches (1912 - 2005)
Bridge-building is my vocation
[from "Natural Light: Portraits of Scottish Writers" (1985)]
David Daiches was born on 2 September 1912 in Sutherland, son of
a Rabbi, but grew up in Edinburgh. He studied in Edinburgh and
Oxford, where he became a Fellow before leaving in 1937 to take up
a post at the University of Chicago. He held various posts in the
USA and England until in 1977 he retired to live in Edinburgh. One
of the world’s leading literary scholars and critics, he wrote many
books in the field of Scottish literary studies, and also on aspects of
Scottish history and on whisky. He died in July 2005 in Edinburgh.
Sponsored by Jenni Calder, family and friends, 2006.