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Lecturer in Literature, University of St Andrews

Originally from the Isle of Lewis, Peter Mackay has an MA from Glasgow University and a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin. He has worked at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the University of University and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, where he was writer in residence. He has also worked as a Broadcast Journalist and television news producer for the BBC, and written or appeared in various documentaries on radio and television.

Peter has published widely on contemporary poetry, particularly Irish and Scottish poetry. His PhD was on the influence of William Wordsworth on Seamus Heaney, He is the author of a book on the poetry of Sorley MacLean, and has edited collections of essays on modern Irish and Scottish poetry and on Scottish Gaelic literature. Recent essays have been on forms of love poetry, the ‘new nature writing’, poetry of the Second World War and radical 18th century verse; his own poetry has also been published widely in Britain and Ireland. He is currently working on a book on Wordsworth and Heaney. He is co-editor, with Iain S MacPherson, of An Leabhar Liath: 500 Years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse (Edinburgh: Luath, £20).

Experience

  • –present
    Director of Postgraduate Research, University of St Andrews