John Munro (poet)

John Munro (1889–1918), was a Scottish soldier and poet who won the Military Cross during the First World War. He fell in action with the 7th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders. Munro was born in Swordale, Isle of Lewis and, writing in his native Gaelic as Iain Rothach, came to be ranked by critics alongside the major war poets. A collection of his poetry was prepared and given to a local minister for safekeeping and publication, but the manuscript was scandalously lost. Derick Thomson - the venerable poet and Professor of Celtic Studies at Glasgow - hailed Munro's work in his Companion to Gaelic Scotland as being: "the first strong voice of the new Gaelic verse of the 20th century".