ABSTRACT
The position of literature and the arts in Gaelic Scotland is affected by the structure of Gaelic society and by the society’s economic strength. The field of general literature is the largest of all, and the one in which there is the greatest potential for development. From the point of view of encouraging the public to read more Gaelic, this may well be the crucial sector. There is a certain oddity about setting out to design a ten-year programme for Gaelic literature, and the designer must be prepared to be proved wrong in his forecasts. A desirable literary programme for the next ten years will have to be couched in rather general terms, indicating the media for publication and the types of publication which are desirable, at least in the writer’s view, and which seem possible, making a realistic but not a pessimistic assessment of the writing potential available and of the reading public which exists or may exist.
