Sorley Maclean Quotes

“The discomfort provoked is what makes this poem so important. Placing that event (the barbaric treatment of the family of the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva in 1939) beside the idealisation of Stalin in MacLean's poem sets all sorts of crucial questions resonating. It raises the hugely disturbing question of the prolonged support offered by writers and intellectuals in the West for a regime characterised by an appalling degree of criminality systematically applied. The fact that Stalin's armies defeated Hitler's does nothing to change the nature of the regime he headed. Within four years of writing 'An Cuilithionn', MacLean became totally alienated from his poem for these very reasons. It would be wonderful if they made it a bad poem, but they don't. You can write splendid poetry in support of a mistaken political cause. MacLean was not the only one to get it wrong - far from it.”
― Christopher Whyte

“Sorley MacLean's poetry, along with Derick Thomson's periodical Gairm (1951), the Gaelic Books Council (1968), the rise of Runrig (1973), the founding of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye (1973) and, economically, the Highlands and Islands Development Board (1965), set in train the revival of the Gaelic language and turned the orientation of thought and language of the Gaels from the traditions of the past to facing the future with an increased sense of confidence.”
― Ann Matheson, Ayont the Thistle: A gallimaufry of poetry and prose to mark the centenary (1926 - 2026) of Hugh MacDiarmid's 'A Drunk Man looks at the Thistle'