We have a wonderful opportunity during Book Week Scotland 2025, with Pàdraig MacAoidh / Peter Mackay joining us at Taigh Chearsabhagh to lead a writing workshop, on Wednesday 19th November, 1.30pm-3.30pm.
Peter is Scotland’s present Makar, the first native Gaelic speaker to be appointed to the role. From the Isle of Lewis, Peter is an academic, writer and broadcaster whose work is influenced by the diverse linguistic heritage of his birthplace.
Spaces on the workshop are limited and must be booked in advance. Book your free ticket using our online ticketing system below.
Later on, Peter will read a selection of his own work at our Poetry Evening in Taigh Chearsabhagh. This event is free and all are welcome to come along at 7.30pm on Wednesday 19th November to listen to Peter read his choice of poems for us.
With an MA from Glasgow University and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin, Mackay has worked at the Séamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University Belfast; Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin; and at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, where he was writer in residence. He has also worked as a journalist and television news producer for the BBC.
He is the author of a monograph on the work of Sorley MacLean (RIISS, 2010), and has co-edited collections of essays on modern Irish and Scottish poetry and on Scottish Gaelic literature. He is currently working on a book on Wordsworth and Séamus Heaney, and has edited, with Ian S. MacPherson, An Leabhar Liath / The Light Blue Book, an anthology of Scottish Gaelic love and ‘transgressive’ poetry, published by Luath Press in 2016, and the winner of the Donald Meek Award. His own poetry first appeared in a pamphlet, From Another Island (Clutag Press, 2010) and the collection Gu Leòr / Galore, published by Acair in 2015.
Book Week Scotland – now in its fourteenth year – is an annual celebration of books and reading that takes place across the country in November, taking place this year from 17th – 22nd November. This year’s theme is friendship, and during the week, visitors to the cafe will be asked to add a line to our ongoing community poem about friendship; what it means to them.
If you would like to support our continued programming and enable us to keep offering free events, please consider making a donation to Taigh Chearsabhagh.
