Alice Milligan was a writer and political activist born in Belfast and educated there at the Methodist College. She studied for a year at King's College London before completing a teacher-training course in Ulster. Following the death of Parnell she became a committed nationalist, and in 1894 co-founded branches of the Irish Women's Association in Belfast, Moneyreagh and Portadown. As president of the IWA and vice-president of the Henry Joy McCracken Literary Society in Belfast—which she helped to found in 1895—she demonstrated her joint allegiance to political and literary matters. The following year, she and Anna Johnston (the poet and activist ‘Ethna Carbery’) founded the Shan Van Vocht, a nationalist journal that championed the work of the Gaelic League. Though the journal only ran for three years, Milligan had soon become involved in amateur drama and until 1908 devoted her time to the writing and staging of plays and tableaux vivants, and also to the role of travelling lecturer for the Gaelic League. Her poetry reveals the depth of her commitment to the materials of Gaelic history, and her skill in rendering them in rhythmic verse form. Her vivid realisation of scenes and characters emphasises the narrative strength of this work, but there is wit and irony to be found too, especially in the later poems. Milligan was in London during the Easter Rising, and, after living in Dublin for several years, moved to England in 1921 and then to Omagh in Co. Tyrone. She remained fiercely opposed to partition.