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
From the early 1970s, MacLean was in demand internationally as a reader of his own poetry. He would start a reading of a poem by describing the images, then read the poem first in Gaelic and again in English, emphasizing that the translations were not to be read as poems in of themselves. His readings were described as deeply moving even by listeners who did not speak Gaelic; according to Seamus Heaney, "MacLean's voice had a certain bardic weirdness that sounded both stricken and enraptured". Gaelic poet George Campbell Hay wrote in a review that MacLean "is gifted with what the Welsh call Hwyl, the power of elevated declamation, and his declamation is full of feeling." These readings helped establish his international reputation as a poet. MacLean's poetry was also translated into German, and he was invited to poetry readings in Germany and Austria.