Sorley MacLean
 
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Partners Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Scottish Arts Council Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig Comunn na Gàidhlig Scottish Arts Council Awards for All Comunn na Gàidhlig The PRS Foundation for New Music Gaelic Arts Highland 2007 Bòrd na Gàidhlig UK LEADER Gaelic Media Service Comunn na Gàidhlig
life
Plockton (1956-1969)

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In 1956, when he became Headmaster of Plockton Secondary School in Wester Ross, Sorley MacLean found himself in Lochalsh not many miles from where his Matheson grandmother’s family had lived at Glas-na-Muclach near Braeintra, before they moved to Skye. He and his wife and three daughters, Ishbel, Caitriona and Mary, made their home in Plockton, and he remained as Headmaster there until his retirement in 1972.

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He worked in both schools there, the older one in the village and the new one on the outskirts. His responsibilities in running a school of this size, in what was then considered a fairly isolated locality, were quite taxing in terms of finding teachers, and he often had to teach himself when there were staff vacancies. The children who were taught English by Sorley MacLean in Plockton, many of them now in late adulthood and scattered across the world, will testify to the
love of the sound and the words of poetry that he instilled in them, even if they did not always realize it at the time.

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Although he was kept busy by his teaching and other administrative duties at school (the demands of which by his own admission did from time to time prove a burden), he was still writing poetry. For his younger brother Calum, the renowned folklore collector in Scotland and Ireland, who had died in 1960 at the untimely age of forty-five, he composed the beautiful and intensely moving elegy ‘Cumha Chaluim Iain MhicGill-Eain’, considered by Hugh MacDiarmid to be
‘one of the noblest elegies I have ever been privileged to read.’ The poem ‘Curaidhean’ was written in 1965, and ‘Palach’, ‘Eadh is Féin is Sàr-Fhéin’, ‘Dà Dhòmhnallach’ and ‘Am Botal Briste’ in the late 1960s.

During his time in Plockton, Sorley MacLean worked tirelessly to improve the situation of the Gaelic language, the inexorable decline of which was a source of deep anxiety to him. He had observed its decline on Skye, and then most markedly on Mull during the time he spent there in the late 1930s. The most detailed account of Sorley MacLean’s part in the campaign to achieve a Higher Leaving Certificate examination paper specifically designed for Gaelic learners, the ‘Learner’s Paper’, is given in an essay by Aonghas MacNeacail. In 1966, Sorley MacLean gave a paper to the Gaelic Society of Inverness on ‘Problems in Gaelic Education’, in which he offered a serious analysis of the position of Gaelic in educational provision in Scotland. He drew comparisons with countries in mainland Europe where children could learn up to three or four languages including their own. He argued that children in Scotland could surely take three languages besides English, adding ‘surely it is not expecting too much of Gaelic patriotism to demand that Gaelic should be one of the three?’

Sorley MacLean did much to promote shinty, a lifetime’s interest of his own, throughout his time as Headmaster in Plockton. In 1965 the School shinty team won the Harrow Cup (for the Ross-shire under-19s), and much of the credit for the team’s successes (1964-66 and 1970-72) are due to Sorley MacLean’s enthusiastic encouragement of the game.


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