Background
Sorley MacLean was born on October 26, 1911 in Raasay, United Kingdom.
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Sorley MacLean was born on October 26, 1911 in Raasay, United Kingdom.
MacLean was educated at Raasay Primary School, before going on to Portree Secondary School. Later he graduated from the University of Edinburgh with his Bachelor of Arts in English with honors. Thereafter he received his teaching diploma from Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh.
Sorley worked then as an English teacher at Portree High School in 1934-1937. In 1938 he was an English teacher at Tobermory Secondary School and in 1947-1956 in Boroughmuir, Edinburgh. MacLean served for the Signal Corps from 1940 till 1943. He served as headmaster of Plockton Secondary School, Wester Ross from 1956 to 1972. He was a writer-in-residence at the University of Edinburgh in 1973-1974 and in 1975-1976 at Sabhal Mor Ostaig Gaelic College, Isle of Skye. He died on November 24, 1996 in Inverness, Scotland.
In June 1987 Sorley was conferred as the first freeman of Skye and Lochalsh, with a ceremony held at Portree. Somhairle MacGill-Eain is commemorated in Makars' Court, outside The Writers' Museum, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh. Selections for Makars' Court are made by The Writers' Museum; The Saltire Society; The Scottish Poetry Library. He also received Scottish Arts Council award in 1990.
MacLean turned away from the Presbyterian faith of his community in his early teens. Like many European intellectuals of that day, his sympathies moved to the far left.
Much of his work touched on specifically political themes and references, and his position was overtly Stalinist until the mid-1940s, although he was never a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Sorley was a skilled and delicate writer of love poetry.
In 1946 Sorley married Catherine (more often known as Renee) Cameron, the daughter of Inverness builder Kenneth Cameron of "Cameron and Munro". They had three daughters, in descending order of age, Ishbel, Catriona and Mary. He had six grandchildren, in descending order of age, Somhairle, Aonghas, Calum, Gilleasbuig, Catherine and Donald. His first great-grandchild, Uilleam Ruairidh was born in 2010.
