麻豆约拍

By Mairi MacLeod.

Read by Mairi Morrison.

A young Skye woman, Eilidh, stops for a break during a walk in the Cuillin mountains. In her rucksack she carries a recent gift: the collected poems of Sorley MacLean. As she begins to read, she hears a woman singing and is transported by the sadness in her voice. Who is the stranger; what tragedy has she suffered?

Second in a series of stories specially commissioned to mark the centenary of the birth of the Highland poet Sorley MacLean. A warded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990, MacLean is regarded as the greatest Gaelic poet of the Twentieth Century, giving new literary standing to a language which has at times seemed close to extinction.

MacLean was born in October 1911 on Raasay, a small island lying off the east coast of Skye, into a family immersed in Highland history and culture. It is often said that what Hugh MacDiarmid did for Scots, Sorley MacLean did for Gaelic, sparking a Gaelic renaissance in Scottish literature. He was also instrumental in preserving and promoting the teaching of Gaelic in Scottish schools. He died in 1996.

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.