He was born in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, and brought up in Tarbert, Kintyre and Argyll, where his father, the novelist John MacDougall Hay, had been born.[1] He was educated at Fettes College (which he despised) and the University of Oxford. He served in the British Army in North Africa, Italy and Macedonia during World War II, a region which featured in much of his work and then lived for a long period in Edinburgh where he worked in the National Library of Scotland.[1]
He was a Scottish nationalist.[1] His life was difficult, with long periods of hard living, including hospitalisation and homelessness.[2]
He was a multilingual poet and published three collections between 1947 and 1952: Fuaran slèibh (1947), Wind on Loch Fyne (1948) and O na ceithir àirdean (1952).[2][1] Some of his poetry was set to music by Francis George Scott.[3]
He was a frequent contributor to Gairm magazine, and other Gaelic periodicals. The critic Kurt Wittig suggested Gaelic traits were more evident in his English than his Scots poetry.[3] Mochtàr is Dùghall, an unfinished epic about a Highland soldier, and a North African Arab in World War II was published in 1982.[1]
His Collected Poems and Songs appeared in 2000, edited by Michel Byrne, and has attracted new attention to his work.[2]
Burns, John (1983), Terrible Beauty: George Campbell Hay, review of Mochtàr is Dùghall, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 13, Summer 1983, pp. 45 & 46
Thomson, Derick (2004). "Hay, George Campbell [Mac Iain Deòrsa]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40321. Campbell, James (1 March 2003). "The Eighth Man". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2021. Wittig, Kurt (1978) [1958]. The Scottish Tradition in Literature. The Mercat Press. pp. 305–7.
- Burns, John (1984), Generous Spirited Heart: The Poetry of George Campbell Hay, in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus No. 18, Autumn 1984, pp. 28 – 30, ISSN 0264-0856