The Poems of Roderick MacLean: (Ruairidh MacEachainn MhicIllEathain - d. 1553)

Roderick MacLean / Ruairidh MacEachainn MhicIllEathan (d. 1553) was commendator of the Abbey of Iona, Bishop of the Isles, and member of an extended kindred who had close connections to Iona and its abbey. After studying on the continent he held a series of ecclesiastical posts in Scotland and spent multiple sojourns on church business in Rome. During his time there in 1549 he saw through the press his Ionis Liber, or Book of the Song of Iona, a paraphrase in neo-classical Latin verse of selected chapters from Adomnan’s Life of Columba.

Only three copies of this rare Pre-Reformation text survive, one in Aberdeen and two in Perugia, so that Macquarrie and Green’s edition makes it accessible to a wider readership for the first time. As well as an edition of the Latin text, they provide an English prose translation, editions and translations of other smaller works by MacLean, extensive commentary, appendices of material in the Vatican Archives relevant to MacLean’s career, an extensive bibliography and index. This will be essential reading for any students or scholars interested in Neo-Latin, Gaelic culture, and the Scottish Reformation.