Alice Letitia Milligan
'pseud.'' Iris Olkyrn(4 September 1865 – 13 April 1953) was an Irish writer and activist in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
's
Celtic Revival
The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gael ...
; an advocate for the political and cultural participation of women; and a
Protestant-unionist convert to the cause of Irish independence. She was at the height of her renown at the turn of the 20th century when in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
, with
Anna Johnston, she produced the political and literary monthly ''
The Shan Van Vocht'' (1896-1899), and when in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
the
Irish Literary Theatre's performed "The Last Feast of the Fianna” (1900), Milligan's interpretation of Celtic legend as national drama.
Early life and influences
Family and education
Milligan was one of nine surviving children born to Charlotte Burns, a linen shop assistant, and Seaton Milligan, a commercial drapery salesman in a village outside
Omagh
Omagh (; from ga, An Ómaigh , meaning 'the virgin plain') is the county town of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is situated where the rivers River Drumragh, Drumragh and Camowen River, Camowen meet to form the River Strule, Strule. North ...
,
County Tyrone
County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional Counties of Ireland, counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an admini ...
, in 1866. In 1879, promoted by his company to an executive position, her father moved the family to Belfast where Milligan was able to attend
Methodist College, Belfast
God with us
, established = 1865
, type = Voluntary grammar
, religion = Interdenominational
, principal = Jenny Lendrum
, chair_label = Chairwoman
, chair = Revd. Dr Janet Unsworth
, founder ...
, an early pioneer of secondary
mixed-sex education
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
. Her first poems were published in the school magazine Eos.
Her father, a liberal
unionist and well-known antiquarian, organized talks and lectures for the local workingmen's institute and drew his daughter into discussion of history, international affairs and literature. Alice also acknowledged the influence of a family servant, Jane, who conveyed the spirit of her previous mistress
Mary Ann McCracken
Mary Ann McCracken (8 July 1770 – 26 July 1866) was a social activist and campaigner in Belfast, Ireland, whose extensive correspondence is cited as an important chronicle of her times. Born to a prominent liberal Presbyterian family, she comb ...
(1770-1866). McCracken was the devoted sister of
Henry Joy McCracken, the
United Irish leader executed in the wake of the
1798 Rebellion
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ''The Hurries'') was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a Irish republicanism, ...
and, to the end of her days in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
, an advocate for women and for the poor.
As a by-product of their participation together in the
Belfast Naturalists' Field Club
The Belfast Naturalists' Field Club is a club of naturalists based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1863, the club was an important part of the education system for Victorian naturalists and worked largely through first-hand field studies ...
, Milligan and her father wrote an ethnographic travelogue of Ireland, ''Glimpses of Erin'' (1888). In the book her father offered that "patriotism … far from being an irrational sentiment is entirely rational and desirable from a utilitarian point of view. It is as much so from a Christian standpoint. By living in our own land and doing our best to benefit it, we can best carry out the command 'Do unto others as you would that they should do to you'".
The Gaelic League
After a year studying in English history and literature at
King's College, London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, Milligan trained as a teacher and 1888 secured a position as a Latin instructor at the MacKikkip's Ladies Collegiate School in
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...
. It is here that she first became interested in
Irish, the once majority language that as a child she had heard spoken only by farm hands. In 1891 she took a further position in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
. Unable, until the formation in 1893 of the
Gaelic League, to find any school or group to teach Irish, she took lessons privately, while reading Irish literature and history in the
National Library.
Milligan's command of Irish was never fluent, and on that basis
Patrick Pearse
Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig or Pádraic Pearse; ga, Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who ...
was to object when, in 1904, the Gaelic League hired her as a travelling lecturer. With the help of costumed ''
tableaux vivants'' evoking Irish historical or literary subjects (a skill she first acquired when commissioned to assist with the Irish exhibit at the
1893 Chicago World Fair), Milligan proved herself by establishing new branches throughout Ireland and raising funds along the way. In the north, in
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...
, she focused on the more difficult task of recruiting Protestants, working with, among other activists, League president
Douglas Hyde, Ada McNeill,
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement ( ga, Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during Worl ...
,
Stephen Gwynn, and Seamus McManus.
Political development
''A Royal Democrat''
In Dublin Milligan was witness both to the first stirrings of the Irish cultural renaissance and to the last act in the political career of
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1875 to 1891, also acting as Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882 and then Leader of the ...
. In June 1891 she saw the beleaguered leader of Irish nationalism at a public meeting "beaten and ashamed" by the furore created by his being named in a divorce case (his affair with
Kitty O'Shea
Katharine Parnell (née Wood; 30 January 1846 – 5 February 1921), known before her second marriage as Katharine O'Shea, and usually called Katie O'Shea by friends and Kitty O'Shea by enemies, was an English woman of aristocratic background ...
).
In the poem "At
Maynooth" she scathingly contrasts the private life of
George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936.
Born duri ...
, in 1911 rapturously received at the Catholic seminary by
Cardinal Logue
Michael Cardinal Logue (1 October 1840 – 19 November 1924) was an Irish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 1887 until his death in 1924. He was created a cardinal in 1893.
Ea ...
, to that of the man once hailed as Ireland's "uncrowned King".
Fascinated by Parnell and his non-denominational nationalism, Milligan followed his appearances across the city, sketching him as she went. This, she conceded, represented a sea-change in her political consciousness. Until then she described herself (despite her father's relative liberalism) as still very much a product of a "Tory and Protestant" upbringing, blinded to the literature and history of her native land by her formal education.
In May 1891 she noted in her diary: "While in the tram going up
O’Connell Street
O'Connell Street () is a street in the centre of Dublin, Ireland, running north from the River Liffey. It connects the O'Connell Bridge to the south with Parnell Street to the north and is roughly split into two sections bisected by Henry St ...
I turned into a Parnellite."
Writing as "Iris Olkyrn", Milligan's first novel, published the year before Parnell's death in October 1891, ''A Royal Democrat'', had been a neo-
Jacobite tale of a future
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
who, born to an Irish mother, leads "his" people in the struggle for land rights and a restored
Irish Parliament. Assuming of the defeat of the existing
Irish Home Rule movement, and attempting too many reconciliations, it was not well received in the nationalist press.
Commemorating 1798
![Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Life_of_Theobald_Wolfe_Tone.jpg)
In 1893 Milligan returned to Belfast. She lived with Anna Johnston (later to write under the name,
Ethna Carbery
Ethna Carbery, born Anna Bella Johnston, (3 December 1864 – 2 April 1902) was an Irish journalist, writer and poet. She is best known for the ballad ''Roddy McCorley'' and the ''Song of Ciabhán''; the latter was set to music by Ivor Gurney. In ...
), the daughter of Robert Johnston, a leading member of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Together with their next-door neighbour, the English-born suffragist Mary Ann Bulmer,
they founded the Irish Women's Association (IWA) in Belfast both to spread "national ideas among the women" and to sustain the city's national and literary "prestige". Branches were also established in
Moneyreagh
Moneyreagh or Moneyrea () is a small village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is just off the main road between Belfast and Ballygowan. It is situated in the civil parish of Comber and the historic barony of Castlereagh Lower ...
(where the Presbyterian minister, Richard Lyttle, convened the Gaelic League),
and in
Portadown. In 1895 Milligan started writing a regular column for the ''Irish Weekly Independent'' entitled "Notes from the North" to remind a Dublin readership of these and other contributions of women, and of the North, to the national cause.
Together with Johnston and Bulmer (and her son
Bulmer Hobson, later also of the IRB), Milligan was drawn into the orbit of
Francis Joseph Bigger. Bigger was a wealthy Presbyterian solicitor; like her father an avid antiquarian (he co-edited the journal of the Irish Folklore Society with Milligan's sister
Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
);
and a celebrated host. To his house, ''Ard Righ'', on the northern shore of Belfast Lough, Bigger attracted the poets and writers of the "Northern Revival" (among them Seumus McManus,
Helen Waddell
Helen Jane Waddell (31 May 1889 – 5 March 1965) was an Irish poet, translator and playwright. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal.
Biography
She was born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister ...
,
Herbert Hughes, and
Margaret Pender) as well other prominent ''culturati''. It was at ''Ard Righ'' that Milligan first met, among the regular visitors,
James Connolly,
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement ( ga, Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during Worl ...
and
W.B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
. Walking with her on Cave Hill above ''Ard Righ'' ("holy" to Milligan as the site where
Wolfe Tone
Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone ( ga, Bhulbh Teón; 20 June 176319 November 1798), was a leading Irish revolutionary figure and one of the founding members in Belfast and Dublin of the United Irishmen, a republican socie ...
and McCracken pledged themselves to Irish independence), Yeats disappointed Milligan. He failed “to warm to the least mention of '98".
Milligan's passion for "'98" was shared by Bigger (he had a room in ''Ard Arigh'' dedicated to the rebellion). Together they sought to organise a Belfast commemoration of the 1798 centenary. Milligan produced a six-penny ''Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone'' (Belfast, 1898). However, the descendants of the "Protestant leaders and peasants" who, according to Milligan, had sealed Tone's union of creeds on "the battle field and scaffold", effectively restricted any commemorative display to Catholic districts. A processive outing (organised with help of Lyttle )
to the grave of
Betsy Gray
Elizabeth "Betsy" Gray (c. 1778 or 1780 - 1798), is a folkloric figure in the annals of 1798 Rebellion in Ireland. Ballads, poems and popular histories celebrate her presence in the ranks of the United Irishmen, and her death, on 12 June 1798 at ...
, heroine of the
Battle of Ballynahinch
The battle of Ballynahinch was a military engagement of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 between a force of roughly 4,000 United Irishmen rebels led by Henry Munro and approximately 2,000 government troops under the command of George Nugent. After ...
, ended in a fracas and the destruction by unionists of her memorial stone.
Milligan's emphasis upon Belfast's republican past "served to highlight just how different the city was at the end of the nineteenth century".
Meanwhile, attitudes on the nationalist side persuaded Milligan to launch (through the IWA) a separate Women's Centenary Union. As a woman she found that she was being barred from Centenary meetings, and that these were being appropriated by local politicians to solicit Catholic votes. On April 6, 1897, she beseeched readers of ''The Shan Van Vocht'': "Is it too much to ask
..that the women of Ireland, who are not asked to have any opinion whatever as to who shall have the right to speak for Ireland in the British Parliament, should form the Union which an historic occasion demands".
''The Shan Van Vocht''
The two-penny journal
''The Shan Van Vocht'' (The "Poor Old Woman" in Irish, the metaphor for Ireland in a rebellion-era ballad) was produced by Milligan and Johnston in the offices of Robert Johnston's timber yard (and often edited at ''Ard Righ''). They had been editing the paper of another commemorative circle, the Henry Joy McCracken Literary Society, the ''Northern Patriot'', but in December 1895 they were dismissed possibly because in three of their four issues they had supported amnesty for
Fenian
The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...
prisoners.
In a short period, the two-penny monthly achieved a wide circulation. As touring lecturers for the Irish Women's Association, Milligan and Johnston promoted the magazine and the formation of reading circles. Agents were found in Dublin, Derry, Glasgow and New York. Within a year subscriptions were also coming in from the Irish diaspora in South Africa, Canada, Argentina and Australia.
Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne MacBride ( ga, Maud Nic Ghoinn Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríghde; 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. Of Anglo-Irish descent, she was won over to Irish nationalism ...
, who described Milligan as "small, aggressive and full of observant curiosity", said that she and her friends were "full of almost envious admiration of some numbers of the ''Shan Van Vocht'', a daring little paper".
The formula was similar to that which had launched the
Gavan Duffy's Young Ireland paper in the 1840s. Like
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
, ''The Shan Van Vocht'' offered a mixture of poetry, serialised fiction, Irish history, political analysis and announcements.
The second issue (Belfast, February 1896) contained the following:
"America ... Oh mighty foster land" (poem); "The Captain’s Daughter" (a serial written by Milligan under the name Iris Olkyrn); "The Lonely One" (poem); "The Rise and Fall of the Fenian Movement of ‘67" (serialised history); "Manus O’Mallaghan and the Fairies" (folklore); "Irish Football Victory"; "On Inisheer’" (poem); "Willie Kane of the “Northern Star”, How He Escaped the Scaffold" (United Irishman); "Irishmen in the Transvaal" (volunteers with the Boers against the British); "The Burial-Place of the Sheares" (United Irishmen); "Our National Language"; "James Clarence Mangan
James Clarence Mangan, born James Mangan ( ga, Séamus Ó Mangáin; 1 May 1803, Dublin – 20 June 1849), was an Irish poet.
He freely translated works from German, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Irish, with his translations of Goethe gaining sp ...
"; "Reviews – The life of Owen Roe O'Neill (the rebel Ulster chieftain), The Life and Writings of Fintan Lalor" (prophet of the Land War); "Our Notebook’" (diary and announcements); "The Moonlighters Hound" (poem); "For the Old Land" (review of different agencies advancing the national cause).
Unity above creed and class
The very first issue, January 1896, had given a platform to
James Connolly: "Socialism and Nationalism", his argument that without a creed capable of challenging the rule of the capitalist, landlord and financier, the nationalism of "Irish Language movements, Literary Societies or Commemoration Committees" would achieve little. Connolly was allowed further submissions, and Milligan published appreciative letters from readers. Yet while expressing "full sympathy with Mr Connolly's views on the labour and social questions", Milligan opposed the formation of his
Irish Socialist Republican Party
The Irish Socialist Republican Party was a small, but pivotal Ireland, Irish political party founded in 1896 by James Connolly. Its aim was to establish an Irish workers' republic. The party split in 1904 following months of internal political ...
and refused their invitation to lecture.
Milligan's editorials "sidestepped" Connolly's proposal to link socialism and nationalism. Instead she took issue with the suggestion that the new party would seek election to Westminster. If successful, she believed that the ISRP would be led into "an alliance with the English labour" no less debilitating than the courtship of English
Liberals had proved for the
Irish Parliamentary Party.
"Freedom's boon" had to be won at home.
Milligan's ideal remained United Irishmen's appeal to nation above both creed and class. It suffused the journal's literary features and, not least, her own particular genre of "across-the-divide" romances. Her serialised "The Little Green Slippers" "melds patriotic and erotic desire".
A young society woman in Protestant Belfast, forced in wake of the McCracken's execution to attend a British
Red-Coat ball, secures the devotion of own her beloved rebel, a country Catholic on the run, by scandalously wearing green slippers and black (mourning) crepe.
The
Donegal Donegal may refer to:
County Donegal, Ireland
* County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster
* Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland
* Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...
writer
Seumas MacManus
Seumas MacManus (31 December 1867 – 23 October 1960) was an Irish author, dramatist, and poet known for his ability to reinterpret Irish folktales for modern audiences.
Biography
Born James McManus on 31 December 1867 in Mountcharles, County ...
wrote that ''The Shan Van Vocht'' "revived Irish nationalism when it was perishing." Leading literary revivalist
Padraic Colum
Padraic Colum (8 December 1881 – 11 January 1972) was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival.
Early life
Col ...
credited "a freshness that came from its femininity" (Milligan and Johnston were joined as the leading contributors by
Alice Furlong
Alice Furlong (26 November 1866 – 1946) was an Irish writer, poet and political activist who also worked on Irish publications with Douglas Hyde (later President of Ireland).
Life
She was born at Old Bawn, near Tallaght, County Dublin, the ...
,
Katherine Tynan,
Margaret Pender and
Nora Hopper
Nora Chesson (2 January 1871 – 14 April 1906) was an English journalist and poet. She won for herself a distinct celebrity as a contributor to most of the English periodicals and newspapers of her time.
Biography
Eleanor Jane Hopper was born ...
) and a nationalism that was northern and never "parliamentarian".
Despite the acclaim, the journal's attempt to unify nationalists across region, class, sex and religion proved untenable: no faction or party was prepared to provide enough financial support to sustain it.
In April 1899,
Mark Ryan of the
IRB persuaded Milligan and Johnston that after forty issues it was time to pass the project on. ''Shan Van Vocht's'' subscription list was passed to
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Joseph Griffith ( ga, Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that prod ...
and his new weekly, the ''United Irishman'', organ of ''
Cumann na nGaedheal
Cumann na nGaedheal (; "Society of the Gaels") was a political party in the Irish Free State, which formed the government from 1923 to 1932. In 1933 it merged with smaller groups to form the Fine Gael party.
Origins
In 1922 the pro-Treaty G ...
'' the forerunner of
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
.
Irish Republican
![Sir Roger Casement (6188264610)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Sir_Roger_Casement_%286188264610%29.jpg)
Milligan's "romantic visions were of marching soldiers and green flags flying". What others regarded as revolutionary violence, the
Fenian dynamite campaign of the 1880s, she rejected.
In the October 1896 issue of ''Shan Van Vocht'', she had condemned the use of dynamite methods:
Those who would stoop to suggest, or organise, or carry out anything of the sort, degrade the name of their country, and in the eyes of the whole world render her less worthy of Nationhood. ..Stern and terrible deeds are often done and may justly be done in such a strife as ours; but this method of bomb throwing and blowing up buildings, without aim or reason other than the mere desire for vengeance is imbecile and wrong.
This was not the light in which she saw the 1916
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...
. Following close upon the death of her parents and her sister Charlotte (whom she had been nursing in London), the insurrection in Dublin, and the executions and loss of Connolly,
Tomas MacDonagh and others she had known, affected her deeply. In London she visited Casement in detention. They had been together in
Larne
Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic Ireland, Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight Roll-on/ro ...
in April 1914 after unionists had
run German guns through the port, a feat Casement told her nationalists would have to match. On August 3, 1916, she was holding vigil outside
Pentonville Prison and heard the applause that signalled his execution. Back in Dublin, she contributed plays and poems to a fund-raising campaign for Irish political prisoners.
Milligan supported
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...
in the
1918 general election (campaigning for
Winifred Carney in Belfast).
While aghast at the
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
that followed, she also sided with
Éamon de Valera in rejecting the 1921
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty ( ga , An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the ...
, refusing
dominion
The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire.
"Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
status and
Partition
Partition may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive
* Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job
Software
* Partition (database), the division of a ...
in lieu of the republic.
Dramatist
Cultural activism
![Gaelic League poster c1905](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Gaelic_League_poster_c1905.jpg)
While her parents were tolerant of her views, Milligan's childhood community excluded her. At the same time she found that in nationalist circles her Protestant background could count against her. What won over many over was her undeniable role in the cultural revival. Milligan's contemporary and fellow poet,
Susan Langstaff Mitchell, wrote of her in 1919:
In almost every one of the national and intellectual activities in Ireland now known to everyone - the Gaelic Revival, the dramatic movement, the literary renaissance - this indefatigable Irish girl was there at the start of them. She was lecturing for the Gaelic League all over Ireland, she was writing plays and staging them ..and she was epeating the judgement of editor and critic, George Russell the most successful producer of plays before the Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the pu ...
started on its triumphant way.
Comparing her to the
Young Irelander
Thomas Davis, in the ''Irish Review'' in September 1914
Tomas MacDonagh described Milligan as "the most Irish of living poets and therefore the best". W.B. Yeats was less convinced. Not least because of the comparison with Davis's heavy-laden patriotic verse, he advised her to stick to drama.
“The Last Feast of the Fianna”
From 1898, in short succession Milligan wrote eleven plays staged by
Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne MacBride ( ga, Maud Nic Ghoinn Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríghde; 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. Of Anglo-Irish descent, she was won over to Irish nationalism ...
's ''
Inghinidhe na hÉireann
Inghinidhe na hÉireann (; "Daughters of Ireland") was a radical Irish nationalist women's organisation led and founded by Maud Gonne from 1900 to 1914, when it merged with the new Cumann na mBan.
Patriotic Children's Treat
The Inghinidhe origi ...
'' (Daughters of Ireland), the
Gaelic League and
Irish Literary Theatre. In February 1901, the ILT performed “The Last Feast of the Fianna” in Dublin's
Gaiety Theatre. Depicting an episode in the
Oisin legend, it was a
Greek stage invocation of the twilight of pre-Christian Ireland.
The play's lack of action and use of music (provided by her sister Charlotte) created moments of "picturesque stillness" on stage suggestive of the ''
tableaux vivant
A (; often shortened to ; plural: ), French for "living picture", is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatric ...
'' which Milligan mounted on tour for the Gaelic League.
At one such moment,
John O'Leary, provided "an extraordinary uniting of past and present, legendary and historical.".
''
The Freeman's Journal
The ''Freeman's Journal'', which was published continuously in Dublin from 1763 to 1924, was in the nineteenth century Ireland's leading nationalist newspaper.
Patriot journal
It was founded in 1763 by Charles Lucas and was identified with radi ...
'' reported that the
Fenian
The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...
chief, veteran of the
1867 Rising, "favoured the authoress by appearing
n stage
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
amongst the band of warriors
iannafeasting at the banquet board".
The reviewer of the Dublin edition of the ''Daily Express'' concluded that "if the aim of the Irish Literary Theatre is to create a national drama", it was "obvious" that Miss Milligan's method was "the proper road" to follow. Yeats, who was working with
George Moore on a comparable project (''
Diarmuid and Grania''), did allow that the play "touched the heart as some greater drama on some foreign theme would not".
But
Augusta Gregory
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (''née'' Persse; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre ...
, with whom Yeats had established the ILT, was entirely dismissive. She found the language of the long soliloquies "intolerable" and the overall effect "tawdry".
National credo
In 1905 the Cork National Players performed Milligan's “The Daughter of Donagh”. The melodrama (which the ILT's successor, the
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the pu ...
had rejected) is based on her unpublished 1893 novel, "The Cromwellians". Characteristically for Milligan it combines the theme of Irish dispossession with a transgressive relationship: between a
Cromwellian soldier and the daughter of the Irish family on which he has been quartered.
Milligan was unapologetic about the continuous nationalist thread in her writing. In 1893 she had written that Irish art could not exist "in some quiet paradise apart" but only "within the noisy field of political warfare". Invoking the memory of Young Ireland, Milligan criticised those in the Literary Revival who "proceeded on purely literary lines" and "lacked the national spirit that had fired the country in
88".
Later years
On the eve of the
Great War Milligan was living in Dublin with her younger brother William and his family. They collaborated on two works of fiction, an Irish-Norse saga ''Sons of the Sea King''. and ''The Dynamite Drummer'' (an American tourist comments on the grim determination of Ulster Protestants in opposing Home Rule "not to rule themselves"). With the outbreak of war, William volunteered and when discharged by the British Army suffered from what might today be recognised as
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
(PTSD). Late in 1921 he received notice that, as a former British officer, he had 24 hours to quit Dublin or be shot. Who sanctioned the republican order was not established. Leaving her business, an Irish bookshop in Dawson Street, and all her possessions, Milligan fled with her brother first to Belfast and then to England.
Milligan and her brother returned to Tyrone in what was now Unionist-controlled
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
in the 1931. She lived with William, who had secured a minor civil-service position, his wife and paralysed son in the village of Drumragh outside Omagh. Her nephew, of whom she was very fond, died in 1934 aged only 26. William died three years later.
Hindered by the regular interception of mail, and obliged to report daily to a police barracks, Milligan described herself to
Áine Ceannt
Áine Ceannt (née Ní Bhraonáin) (Dublin 1880-1954) was an Irish revolutionary activist and humanitarian leader.
Biography
Born Frances Brennan, she was the daughter of Francis Brennan, who himself had been a Fenian earlier in his life, and si ...
as an "interned prisoner". She spoke of the "hostile" "un-Irish" atmosphere of the North at
Wexford
Wexford () is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the island of Ireland. The town is linked to Dublin by the M11/N11 N ...
's commemoration of the United Irishmen in July 1938. That year she was the only woman signatory of a pamphlet issued by the Northern Council for Unity protesting
Partition
Partition may refer to:
Computing Hardware
* Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive
* Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job
Software
* Partition (database), the division of a ...
.
During the Second World War, after the death of her sister-in-law, Milligan went to live on a farm in
County Antrim
County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...
with her lifelong friend, Eleanor Boyd. Relieved of the burden of caring for sick family members she again wrote poems for the Nationalist press, including ''
The Irish Press
''The Irish Press'' (Irish: ''Scéala Éireann'') was an Irish national daily newspaper published by Irish Press plc between 5 September 1931 and 25 May 1995.
Foundation
The paper's first issue was published on the eve of the 1931 All-Ireland ...
'' edited by her friend, M.J. MacManus. In 1941, the National University of Ireland granted her an honorary doctorate.
Alice Milligan died in Trichur, County Tyrone, on 13 April 1953, aged 87. She had ended her life in poverty. Her Unionist relatives, she explained to Bigger, were disinclined to give her a helping hand "as they find that my political activities are constrained by financial embarrassment". Visiting her in the late 1940s, the Irish writer and broadcaster
Benedict Kiely was saddened "to think that to be poor, lonely and smoke-dried should be the lot of a poet at the end of it all".
In 1914, acknowledging Milligan as "a northern Protestant woman who had denounced the unionist Anglo-centric doctrine of her upbringing", Tomas MacDonagh described hers as "a cultural practice that gave voice to those (like herself) who were so often confined to the footnotes of colonial history".
Commemoration
During 2010/2011 Ulster History Circle mounted plaques for famous Ulster figures. Charlotte Milligan Fox and Alice Milligan have a plaque mounted on Omagh Library, 1 Spillar's Place, Omagh, Co Tyrone.
Select works
Plays (in order of journal publication)
* “The Last Feast of the Fianna”, ''Daily Express'', Dublin (1899)
* "The Daughters of Donagh", ''United Irishmen" (weekly, December 1903)
* “Brian of Banba”, in ''United Irishman'' (1904)
* “Oisin in Tir-nan-Og”, ''Daily Express'', Dublin (1899); also as “Oisín in Tír nan Og", in a translation by Tadgh Ua Donnchadha, ''Sinn Féin'' (23 Jan. 1909)
* “Oisin and Padraic: One-Act Play”, ''Sinn Féin'' (20 Feb. 1909)
Plays (book publication)
* ''The Last Feast of the Fianna: A Dramatic Legend'' (London: David Nutt 1900), (Chicago: De Paul Univ. 1967),
irst printed ''Daily Express'', Dublin 1899* ''The Daughter of Donagh: A Cromwellian Drama in Four Acts'' (1905) (Dublin: Martin Lester 1920)
Poetry
* ''Hero Lays'' (Dublin: Maunsel, 1908)
* ''Two Poems'' (Dublin: Three Candles, 1943)
* with Ethna Carbery & Seumus MacManus, ''We Sang for Ireland'' (Dublin: Gill, 1950).
* ''Poems by Alice Milligan'', ed. with biographical introduction by Henry Mangan (Dublin: Gill, 1954).
* ''The Harper of the Only God: A Selection of Poetry by Alice Milligan'', Sheila Turner Johnston, ed. (Omagh: Colourpoint, 1993).
Novels
* ''A Royal Democrat'' (London: Simpkin, Marshall/Dublin: Gill, 1892).
* "The Cromwellians", (''United Irishman'', 5-26 Dec. 1903, weekly serialisation)
* with William Milligan, ''The Dynamite Drummer'' (Dublin: Lester,
9001918)
* with William Milligan, ''Sons of the Sea King Dublin'' (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1914).
Non-fiction
* with Seaton F. Milligan, ''Glimpses of Erin'' (London: Marcus Ward, 1890).
* ''The Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone'' (Belfast: J. W. Boyd, 1898).
* "Tribute to AE"
eorge Russell ''Dublin Magazine'' (October 1935)
Journals edited with Anna Johnston
* ''The Northern Patriot'' (Belfast: October 1895 - December 1895)
* ''The Shan Van Vocht'' (Belfast: January 1896 - April 1899)
See also
*
List of Irish writers
This is a list of writers either born in Ireland or holding Irish citizenship, who have a Wikipedia page. Writers whose work is in Irish are included.
Dramatists A–D
*John Banim (1798–1842)
* Ivy Bannister (born 1951)
*Sebastian Barry (born ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
External links
Omagh District Council pageAlice Milligan Collectionat th
Kenneth Spencer Research Libraryat the
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...
The Shan Van Vocht Onlineat th
UCD Digital Libraryat
University College Dublin
University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...
1911 census return
{{DEFAULTSORT:Milligan, Alice
Irish poets
People from Omagh
1865 births
1953 deaths
Irish women poets
People from County Tyrone
Protestant Irish nationalists
People educated at Methodist College Belfast