Saints Spotlight: Dr Peter Mackay
Dr Peter Mackay is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English and was announced as the new Makar – the National Poet for Scotland – in December. In this month’s Saints Spotlight he discusses his interests in Scottish and Irish literature, his Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) funded research fellowship, and being the first Makar to write in Gaelic.
How did your St Andrews story start?
I joined the School of English as a Lecturer in Literature in the School of English in 2013. Prior to joining I had a meandering career through a Research Fellowship at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in Belfast, teaching positions at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh, working as a broadcast journalist at the BBC, and being writer-in-residence at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.
What are your current priorities in your role at the University?
My main areas of teaching – and research – are in Scottish Literature since 1700 and Irish literature since 1880, especially poetry; my priorities are celebrating as widely as possible the different languages and literatures of these islands, and seeing how the different cultures informed and energised each other.
What is the focus of your research at St Andrews?
My main research focus at the moment is the 18th century poet, soldier, lexicographer, tutor to Charles Edward Stuart and rabble-rouser Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (Alexander MacDonald, as he is often referred to in English). He is one of the greatest Gaelic poets, and a fantastic figure through which to reimagine the 1700s: as well as being the author of the first vocabulary and book of poems in Gaelic, he was an eyewitness to the battle of Culloden and its aftermath, and the composer of some of the most virulently political – and bawdy – poems in the language. I’m currently working on an RSE funded fellowship to collect and translate his poems for the first time.
Tell us about your proudest achievement.
In 2024 I was named the Makar of Scotland, the equivalent of the poet laureate (I write as well as researching poetry); I’m the first of the five Makars to write in Gaelic.
Where is your favourite spot in St Andrews?
Overlooking Castle Sands, looking out to the North Sea: only a stone’s throw from my office, and with a different view every day, depending on the sea conditions.