News at Eleven: [George] Mackay Brown embraced Catholicism

the way others of his generation embraced communism. If he had met Frank O'Connor or Edna O'Brien as they fled Catholic Ireland, their pub conversations would have been interesting. Just as Austin Clarke wrote Too Great a Vine (about excessive Irish Catholic power), Mackay Brown wrote, from his home at Mayburn Court, Stromness:

'For Scotland I sing, the Knox-ruined nation that poet and saint must rebuild with their passion.'

from Irish Examiner: Life of the poet and Catholic-convert Mackay Brown steps on sacred ground

~~~~~~~~~~~