Sorley Maclean 1911 - 1996

Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996

Contents:

Biography...... Pages 1 - 2 Hallaig...... Pages 2 - 5 The Highlands, the Clearances and the making of Scottish Myth ...... Pages 5 - 7 Further Reading / Contacts...... Pages 8 - 11

Biography:

Sorley MacLean (his Gaelic name is Somhairle MacGill-Eain) was born on the island of Raasay, near Skye, in 1911. He was brought up speaking Gaelic and only began to learn English when he started school at the age of six. His family was well-versed in Gaelic song and music: his father and his uncle were pipers and his grandmother and an aunt were Gaelic singers.

MacLean went on to study at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a fi rst in English, then took up teaching as a career. He worked in Skye, Mull and Edinburgh and eventually became head teacher at Plockton High School, retiring in 1972. He served with Signals in the Second World War, returning seriously wounded from El Alamein.

While at university he began writing poetry, at fi rst in English, but when he translated one of his poems into Gaelic he immediately felt his poetic voice to be stronger and truer in his fi rst language. He would continue to write in Gaelic for the rest of his life, translating much of his work himself into English. His poetry is distinguished for its inventiveness and its scope and breadth. MacLean represents a break with Gaelic tradition, bringing in many modern elements. He showed that the Gaelic language, although one of the oldest in Europe and inextricably associated with an ancient way of life which was steadily passing into oblivion, was as fl exible and as subtle as any modern language and its poetry was as capable of dealing with complex and contemporary issues. His work refl ects a profound passion for his culture and his people, his language and his literary heritage. His themes range from a raging sense of injustice at human greed and cruelty, to soaring expressions of love; from the devastation of the Clearances, to the horrors of modern warfare.

He was never a prolifi c poet – his teaching duties hobbled his creative output – and he was never a professional ‘career’ poet. He wrote as it suited him, as the rhythms came to him, not for glory or fame or material reward. Even though he was widely published – in fact his fi rst poems were published in conjunction with Robert Garioch – his audience was mainly confi ned to the Gaelic speaking community. MacLean also benefi tted from the sturdy advocacy of Douglas Young, who sought a broader audience for the work of his friend by translating his poems into Scots. Widespread recognition was slow in coming but by the 1970s he was fi rmly established as one of Scotland’s leading poets, due partly to an 1 appearance at the Cambridge Poetry Festival where his distinctive and sonorous reading Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996

voice alerted an infl uential new audience to his verse.

Sorley MacLean has earned a place as one of Scotland’s most important poets – he is responsible for bringing Gaelic literature into the twentieth century and breathing new life into a language that had long been on the verge of extinction, and was considered more or less irrelevant in the history of Scotland’s literature. MacLean encouraged the Scottish literary establishment to reappraise this erroneous view. Consequently, the positive infl uence MacLean has had on the resurgence of Gaelic in recent years can justly be described as incalculable. Written By Colin Clark Hallaig:

‘Tha tìm, am fi adh, an coille Hallaig’ ‘Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig’

Tha bùird is tàirnean air an uinneig The window is nailed and boarded troimh ‘m faca an Aird an Iar through which I saw the West ‘s tha mo ghaol aig Allt Hallaig and my love is at the Burn of Hallaig, ‘na craoibh bheithe. ‘s bha i riamh a birch tree, and she has always been

eadar an t-Inbhir ‘s Poll a’ Bhainne, between Inver and Milk Hollow, thall ‘s bhos mu Bhaile-Chùirn: here and there about Baile-chuirn: tha i ‘na beithe, ‘na calltuinn, she is a birch, a hazel, ‘na caorunn dhìreach sheang ùir. a straight, slender young rowan.

Ann an Screapadal mo chinnidh, In Screapadal of my people, far robh Tarmad ‘s Eachunn Mór, where Norman and Big Hector were, tha ‘n nigheanan ‘s am mic ‘nan coille their daughters and their sons are a wood ag gabhail suas ri taobh an lóin. going up beside the stream.

Uaibhrach a nochd na coilich ghiuthais Proud tonight the pine cocks ad gairm air mullach Cnoc an Rà, crowing on the top of Cnoc an Ra, dìreach an druim ris a’ ghealaich – straight their backs in the moonlight — chan iadsan coille mo ghràidh. they are not the wood I love.

Fuirichidh mi ris a’ bheithe I will wait for the birch wood gus an tig i mach an Càrn, until it comes up by the cairn, gus am bi am bearradh uile until the whole ridge from Beinn na Lice o Bheinn na Lice f’ s sgàil. will be under its shade.

Mura tig ‘s ann theàrnas mi a Hallaig If it does not, I will go down to Hallaig, a dh’ ionnsaigh sàbaid nam marbh, to the Sabbath of the dead, far a bheil an sluagh a’ tathaich, where the people are frequenting, gach aon ghinealach a dh’ fhalbh. every single generation gone. 2 Tha iad fhathast ann a Hallaig, They are still in Hallaig,

Clann Gill-Eain ‘s Clann MhicLeòid, MacLeans and MacLeods, na bh’ ann ri linn Mhic Ghille-Chaluim: all who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim: Chunnacas na mairbh beo. the dead have been seen alive.

Na fi r ‘nan laighe air an lianaig The men lying on the green aig ceann gach taighe a bh’ ann, at the end of every house that was, na h-igheanan ‘nan coille bheithe, the girls a wood of birches, dìreach an druim, crom an ceann. straight their backs, bent their heads.

Eadar an Leac is na Feàrnaibh Between the Leac and Fearns tha ‘n rathad mór fo chóinnich chiùin, the road is under wild moss ‘s na h-igheanan ‘nam badan sàmhach and the girls in silent bands a’ dol a Chlachan mar o thùs. go to Clachan as in the beginning,

Agus a’ tilleadh ás a’ Chlachan, and return from Clachan, á Suidhisnis ‘s á tìr nam beò; from Suisnish and the land of the living; a chuile té òg uallach each one young and light-stepping, gun bhristeadh cridhe an sgeòil. without the heartbreak of the tale.

O Allt na Feàrnaibh gus an fhaoilinn From the Burn of Fearns to the raised beach tha soilleir an dìomhaireachd nam beann that is clear in the mystery of the hills, chan eil ach coimhthional nan nighean there is only the congregation of the girls ag cumhail na coiseachd gun cheann. keeping up the endless walk,

A ‘ tilleadh a Hallaig anns an fheasgar, coming back to Hallaig in the evening, anns a’ chamhanaich bhalbh bheò, in the dumb living twilight, a’ lìonadh nan leathadan casa, fi lling the steep slopes, an gàireachdaich ‘nam chluais ‘na ceò, their laughter in my ears a mist,

‘s am bòidhche ‘na sgleò air mo chridhe and their beauty a fi lm on my heart mun tig an ciaradh air na caoil, before the dimness comes on the kyles, ‘s nuair thearnas grian air cùl Dhùn Cana and when the sun goes down behind Dun Cana thig peileir dian á gunna Ghaoil; a vehement bullet will come from the gun of Love;

‘s buailear am fi adh a tha ‘na thuaineal and will strike the deer that goes dizzily, a’ snòtach nan làraichean feòir; sniffi ng at the grass-grown ruined homes; thig reothadh air a shùil ‘sa’ choille: his eye will freeze in the wood, chan fgighear lorg air fhuil ri m’ bheò. his blood will not be traced while I live.

The poem begins with a line in quotation marks, an epigraph: “Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig”. Epigraphs are a common device in literature; they are literally inscriptions, often borrowed from other writers, and their function is subtly to guide the reader towards a particular way of understanding or interpreting what follows. They can also help to add resonance to a poem or section of a novel, or locate a piece of writing within an established tradition. 3 So, what about this epigraph? How does it help us to read Hallaig. The fi rst and most Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996

important observation we make is that the epigraph is strongly metaphorical. Time is the deer. MacLean is telling us we are not to read this poem in a straightforward, literal way. Things are not as they seem. A level of symbolism is operating within the poem, and we must be alert to that.

MacLean draws a comparison between two things: an abstract concept (time) and a very concrete object, a living animal (a deer). What possible grounds are there for comparison? We might think of the shy elusive qualities of the deer. Can time be like that? The deer is often hunted – by man as well as other animals. In what way can time be said to be hunted? Time can also be expressed as memormemory,y, or historhistory.y. In this poem, time is said to be in the woods: what memories, what histories might exist in the woods of Hallaig? Finally, the deer is a beast often strongly associated with the highlands. There may be other grounds for comparison, but the point is that the richness of the metaphor will sustain a whole complex of interpretations.

The fi rst stanza presents an image of dereliction, a “nailed and boarded” window. We are not told there is a house, we can only imply the existence of one through the image of the window. The part stands for the whole: another kind of metaphor. Is this the house the speaker once lived in? “Through which I saw the West” certainly implies that. Or does it stand more generally for his homeland? There is a cutting off of sight, a cutting off of the West too. If it cannot be seen, is it still there?

The second two lines cause some confusion – where is the connection between the boarded up window and the speaker’s love? Furthermore, we are told she is “a birch tree, and she has always been”. Obviously the sentence doesn’t end here, grammatically the sense carries on to the second stanza, but the use of enjambement encourages us to think that his love is, and has always been, a birch tree!

How do we interpret this? Not literally, obviously! Is his love, though, a woman? A romantic kind of love? Or is it the love he has for his country, the land, the natural elements? The adjectives in the last line of the second stanza suggest a youthful girl: “straight, slender, young”.

Remembering the epigraph, if time can be a deer can people be trees? In Celtic mythology there are some folkloric associations that certain trees have – particularly birch, hazel and rowan trees. These trees traditionally offer protection and shelter, not just from the elements but from death and disease as well as evil spirits.

Although you will fi nd no explicit mention of it in this poem, the theme of Hallaig is the Highland Clearances. In this poem the trees become like spirits: as the highlands and islands were cleared of people in the 18th century, in Hallaig MacLean populates the area once more by identifying elements, the trees, in the natural landscape with people. Not just his loved one, but whole clans and families as well as certain individuals. Their ghostly 4 presence is visible everywhere. The echoes of that terrible time have endured: these Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996

people, lost to the ravages of the Clearances, and subsequent generations unborn, are there still in Hallaig, in memory, in MacLean’s beautiful poetry – but eerily they are also not there.

It is the act of remembering that brings these people and places back to life. As long as the stories are passed on from generation to generation – and MacLean is writing several generations removed from the time of the Clearances – then the ability for these people to continue to live on in memory remains magically possible. MacLean’s chilling last lines suggest that this may not always be possible. A bullet from “the gun of Love” will kill the deer, which we know from the epigraph is associated with time. All traditions, memories will be forgotten eventually, MacLean seems to suggest, and this litany of names and places may cease to be meaningful to future generations. Events like the Clearances, which forever changed the destiny of an entire people, must not be forgotten, yet that is what he suggests may indeed happen: one day the meaning of the “grass-grown ruined homes” may be lost, the memory of that time may dim like the sun going down over the kyles.

It is the function of the poet, or in this case the word bard maymay be more appropriate,appropriate, to sustain this act of collective remembering, something which MacLean with this poem man- ages to achieve – and which will remain long after his death. Written By Colin Clark

The Highlands, the Clearances and the making of the Scotch Myth:

It is one of the abiding curiosities of modern Scotland that despite the vast majority of the population residing in lowland areas, despite its modern economy based on manufacturing and new technology, despite a vibrant urban based culture, the images we use to defi ne ourselves and to identify our country to others are almost exclusively based on a culture and way of life that was very nearly (and deliberately) exterminated in the 18th century.

Mountains and lochs, kilts and bagpipes have little or nothing to do with life in Scotland as it is lived by most of us in the 21st century. Apart from convenient branding advantages and a unique marketplace identity in the global tourist trade, the reasons for this go back 200 years and the events surrounding the worst and most tragic period in Scotland’s history.

For most of its history Scotland’s highlands were a no-go area, unless you happened to live there. For your average lowlander, anywhere north of the river Tay was wild, uncharted and lawless. It wasn’t somewhere you went on a weekend for a spot of fi shing 5 or a healthy hike up a hill – it wasn’t ever considered picturesque. The highlands were Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996

considered a brutal, dangerous place where it was a struggle to survive. People who lived in the highlands had to face a merciless climate; land which was diffi cult and in many places actually impossible to cultivate; heartless landlords who often charged exorbitant rents; and the worst, most abject poverty in Europe at the time. Besides that, highlanders had to endure the contempt and derision of their lowland compatriots: as far as lowland town dwellers were concerned, the highlands may as well have been a different country.

Highlanders had a reputation for violence, usually against one and other, but their valour and fearlessness in battle was legendary and would later be used to great advantage by the commanders of the British army, as well as settlers in the new colonies in America. They were generally kept at arm’s length, and viewed by the state with suspicion and distrust – especially after the failed revolution in 1745 and the attempt by Charles Edward Stewart to claim the British crown for the Stuarts.

It was only when the highlands and the people who lived there were rendered powerless that the more romantic associations we have now with the north of Scotland began to fl ourish. In the 19th century, historical bestseller writer Sir Walter Scott would give the highland a new respectability and romantic identity. But before that could happen an entire way of life had to be eradicated.

The trouble with the highlands was essentially that too many people were trying to make a living from a land which was simply unable to support them. It is no accident that the main population centres of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Stirling, and Dundee are in lowland areas as this is where the best farming land is. Further north the land is suitable for growing only a limited number of crops, and is best suited for rough grazing.

The Clearances came about from an attempt by landlords to earn more money from their land. Faced with rising debts, an increasingly competitive agricultural market , and insuffi cient revenue from the rents they raised from their tenants the landlords were forced to act. They saw the solution in the form of grazing livestock which would get them a bigger return for their investment and which would endure the vagaries of the highland climate more robustly than crops. In order to do this, many, though not all, landlords drove their tenants out of their homes, even burned their houses and villages if they refused to leave, and in their place they brought in herds of cattle and sheep.

The results were immediate and catastrophic, often horrifi c. Some landlords were more ruthless than others, and some parts of the highlands were more badly affected than others, depending on the other possible sources of livelihood available to the tenants, such as fi shing or textiles. But it meant the end of a way of life centuries old. Forever. Entire communities were eradicated, either through starvation, or emigration. Vast swathes of the country were emptied of people. Where hundreds of families worked and lived together, one or two remained. Families left in their droves, thousands choosing the dangerous journey across the Atlantic to an uncertain life in America or Nova Scotia rather than face 6 starvation at home. Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996

Sometimes when landlords attempted to resettle tenants on different parts of their land, the families were left with soil so poor that the only crop that would produce enough to support the people living there was the potato – and in 1846 the entire potato crop failed, as it had in Ireland the year before causing the worst famine Europe had ever seen. The only reason Scotland escaped a similar fate was because so many people had already emigrated.

The Clearances were economically motivated, and they eventually brought the highlands into the modern age, but at the cost of many, many human lives and at the expense of an entire way of life. They also rendered the highlands politically powerless. The political classes of the lowlands, as well as those in power in England, no longer had anything to fear from the rebellious highlands.

The deep and tragic irony is that, in 1822, while the Clearances were well under way, moves were afoot to welcome King George IV to Edinburgh, an event stage managed by Sir Walter Scott, famous author and Tory, and ardent supporter of the monarchy. George IV was a vain and overweight man. When he arrived in Scotland in Leith docks aboard his royal yacht, he was met by Scott who had laid on a number of events designed to present the king in the most favourable light possible with the people of Scotland in order to bring about a more harmonious relationship with England. Scott chose the tartan, the kilt, the plaid, the sgian dubh (or short dagger) and the bonnet as typical Scottish dress – forms of dress associated with the highlands, but which no self-respecting highlander would have been seen dead wearing. But when the King got dressed up in this attire the concept of ‘full highland dress’ was born.

The new look was an instant hit both here and south of the border – assisted, bizarrely, by a couple of Polish brothers who published a tartan pattern book – and a craze for tartan took hold in the fashionable salons of England. The notion, which persists to this day, of the highlands as a romantic, misty land full of tartan clad twinkling-eyed lasses and brave bonnie laddies is a product of this time, of Walter Scott and his enormously popular romanticised historical novels, and some creative royal tailoring. And nothing at all to do with the highlands themselves.

In reality, in the highlands, landlords continued to burn tenants out of their homes, fl ocks of families continued to fl ee to the north American continent – those that survived the crossing – while everybody south of the Tay turned a blind eye and allowed the culture that had given birth to the images of modern Scottishness to continue to teeter on the brink of extinction. Written By Colin Clark 7 Copyright 2003 © Scottish Literary Tour Trust. All Rights Reserved. Sorley MacLean 1911 - 1996