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William Mcgonagall





LIFE AND POETRY

Born in Edinburgh , of Irish parentage, he was working as a Handloom Weaver in Dundee, Scotland when an event occurred that was to change his life. As he was later to write:

The most startling incident in my life was the time I discovered myself to be a poet, which was in the year 1877.


It was with this that he wrote his first poem ''An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan '', which showed all the hallmarks that would characterise his later work. Rev. Gilfillan commented "Shakespeare never wrote anything like this".