Background
He was born in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, and brought up in Tarbert, Kintyre and Argyll.
He was born in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, and brought up in Tarbert, Kintyre and Argyll.
He was educated at Fettes College (which he despised) and the University of Oxford.
He used the patronymic Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa. He also wrote poetry in French, Italian and Norwegian, and translated poetry from many languages into Gaelic. He served in the British Army in North Africa during World World War II, a region which featured in much of his work and then lived for a long period in Edinburgh.
He was a Scottish nationalist.
His life was difficult, with long periods of hard living. He was the son of the novelist John MacDougall Hay (1880-1919).