[2] He attended Uig Primary School and Portree High School, and from 1968 the University of Glasgow[2] where he was one of a group of young writers who gathered around Philip Hobsbaum which also included James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead and Jeff Torrington.

Growing up, he changed his registered birth name to Aonghas MacNeacail, the Scottish Gaelic version of his name.

Besides drawing on Gaelic traditions, MacNeacail was influenced by the Black Mountain School of the United States.

He held writing fellowships in Scotland, including residences at the Gaelic college of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, and read his work at festivals around the world.

MacNeacail won the Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year with his third collection, Oideachadh Ceart ("A Proper Schooling and other poems"), in 1997.