Hay, George Campbell

(1915-1984)

   Scottish poet (Deòrsa Mac Iain Deòrsa) was born in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, where his father, John Macdougall Hay - author of Gillespie (1914), a brooding novel of Tarbert life-was the minister. He died when George was only four and the family returned to Argyll, where young George developed an intense admiration for the Loch Fyne ring-net fishermen. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, and Oxford University. His service in the British Army in North Africa during World War II is reflected in his poems about that region. After the war he lived mostly in Edinburgh, where he was a staunch supporter of Scottish nationalism. He was a frequent contributor to Gairm magazine and other Gaelic periodicals, and his best work appeared in that language. A gifted linguist, he translated poems from many European languages into Gaelic, but his own poems in Gaelic and Scots represent his most significant achievement. He was a significant figure in the renaissance of Gaelic poetry in the twentieth century. Some of his poems: "Atman," "Bizerta," "Flooer o the Gean," "Still Gyte [mad], Man?" "The Old Fisherman," "The Two Neighbours," "To a Loch Fyne Fisherman."

   Sources: A Book of Scottish Verse. Maurice Lindsay, and R.L. Mackie, ed. St. Martin's Press, 1983. Collected Poems and Songs of George Campbell Hay (Deorsa Mac Iain Dheorsa) (two volumes), Michel Byrne, ed. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. Columbia University Press, George Campbell Hay (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/074861/0748610634.HTM). Biography of George Campbell Hay (http://www.nls.uk/writestuff/heads/weehay.html). Scottish Authors, George Campbell Hay (http://www.slainte.org.uk/scotauth/hayjodsw.htm). The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse. Robert Crawford and Mick Imlah, ed. Penguin Books, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).