Sorley MacLean
Sorley MacLean was born at Òsgaig on the island of Raasay on 26 October 1911; Scottish Gaelic was his first language. Before he went to school at the age of six, he spoke very little English. He was the second of five sons born to Malcolm (1880–1951) and Christina MacLean (1886–1974). The family owend a small croft and ran a tailoring business, but they later gave up the croft to move to a better house, which proved detrimental to their finances when the Great Depression took a high toll on the tailoring business. His brothers were John Maclean (1910–1970), a schoolteacher and later rector of Oban High School, who was also a piper; Calum Maclean (1915–1960), a noted folklorist and ethnographer; and Alasdair (1918–1999) and Norman (c.1917–c.1980), who became general practitioners. Sorley's two younger sisters, Isobel and Mary, were also schoolteachers. His patronymic was Somhairle mac Chaluim 'ic Chaluim 'ic Iain 'ic Tharmaid 'ic Iain 'ic Tharmaid; he could not trace his genealogy with certainty to the eighth generation.
Sorley MacLean
He was educated at Raasay Primary School and Portree Secondary School. In 1929, he left home to attend the University of Edinburgh. For economic reasons, he chose to study English instead of Celtic. He disliked the head of the English department, Herbert Grierson, who favoured different poets than MacLean; MacLean felt that Grierson imposed his aesthetic preferences on the department. MacLean's academic work has been described as merely "dutiful". While at Edinburgh, MacLean also took classes in the Celtic department, then under William J. Watson. He was involved in left-wing politics, literary circles, and the university shinty team. MacLean later described an occasion in which he had demonstrated against Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. According to Celtic scholar Emma Dymock, MacLean's education at Edinburgh broadened his horizons and the city itself was significant in his life. While in Edinburgh, he observed urban poverty, slums, and overcrowding, especially severe due to the Great Depression. After his graduation in 1933 with a first-class degree, rather than pursuing postgraduate studies he remained in Edinburgh and spent a year at Moray House Teachers' Training College, where he met Hugh MacDiarmid.