beyond by Aonghas MacNeacail Event with Colin Bramwell and Gerda Stevenson - Thursday 2nd May 2024

Join us to celebrate the life and work of renowned Scottish writer Aonghas MacNeacail. Colin Bramwell and Gerda Stevenson will discuss and read from beyond, Aonghas MacNeacail's posthumously published final poetry collection.

"And what a great collection it is! One good poem after another, and most of them not known to me before. 'had adam not eaten the apple' is one such: so true, and such a brilliant final line. What comes through strongly, as well as the love and humour, is the value Aonghas placed on scepticism as a vital human asset.” James Robertson.

Buy a copy of beyond and receive a free ticket to the event.

Thursday 2nd May at 6.30pm.

This event will take place at St Vincent's Chapel, St Vincent Street, EH3 SW.

We will follow up on your booking with an email confirmation - please be sure to check your junk folder!

About Aonghas MacNeacail and beyond:

Aonghas MacNeacail (1942-2022) was a major Scottish writer from Skye. He composed poetry, songs, journalism, scripts, librettos and translations. Among Gaelic-speakers he was known as Aonghas Dubh - Black Angus.

Among his many accolades, he won the 1997 Stakis prize for Scottish Writer of the Year, and also received the Saltire Society's Premiere Award for contribution to the arts in 2005. His New & Selected Poems, 'Laughing at the Clock / Deanamh Gaire Ris A' Chloc', was published by Polygon in 2012. Aonghas grew up in a croft in Uig, on Skye.

His first encounter with the English language was at school: while Aonghas spoke Gaelic at home, English was his language of education, and the first language that he wrote poetry in. While studying at Glasgow he became part of Philip Hobsbaum's famous Glasgow Group of creative writers, alongside Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead, James Kelman and Alasdair Gray. He became involved with the Poetry Society while working as a housing officer in London: he later became the writer in residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college on Skye, and this reinvigorated his desire to write in Gaelic also.

Latterly Aonghas became famous as a Gaelic-language writer, though in fact he composed work in all three native languages of Scotland. He was a founding member of the Scottish Poetry Library. 'beyond' is a posthumous collection of his English-language poems, edited by Colin Bramwell with Gerda Stevenson.