By Alan Riach Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University
Essay
Embargoed to 0001 Thursday December 13..Handout photo from 1908 issued by the Lewis Museum Trust of the HMY Iolaire (then called the Almathea) prior to it going into service at the Stornoway Naval Base. The vessel sank near Stornoway in Lewis on New LAST week we took an overview of Gaelic poetry of the 20th century, following Ronald Black’s suggestion in An Tuil: Duanaire Gàidhlig an 20mh Ceud/Anthology of 20th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse (1999) that there were four high tides beginning with Alexander Carmichael’s collection of traditional work in Carmina Gadelica. The second tide arose through the poetry of the Second World War and is centred on the work of Sorley MacLean and George Campbell Hay; the third with Derick Thomson and Iain Crichton Smith; the fourth from Donald MacAulay through to the present day.