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46:, of English and Welsh-Irish parents, and was educated at Christchurch Cathedral Grammar School. In 1920 he signed on as a seaman and worked on boats, off and on, until 1935. During the 30s too he began writing and had his first poems published in 1935. That year, Milne was one of the three founders of a duplicated publication called
140:, was published in Dublin, followed by two others in 1940 and 1941. Having taken a pro-British line in neutral Ireland, he was informed by Karl Petersen, the German press attache in Dublin, that he was on the Nazi death list. This decided him to help in the British war effort and he returned to England with the help of
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Both in his conversation and in his poetry, Milne used to complain of being passed over because of his dual heritage: "The
English see I am not English...To the Irish I am Anglo." He resisted categorisation, and his changes of residence back and forth across the Irish Sea only added to the problem.
33:
poet who described himself on various book jackets as "a sailor before the mast, ambulance driver and courier during the
Spanish Civil War, a land worker and estate manager in England during and after World War 2" and also "an enthusiast for lost causes – national, political, social and merely
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Milne's poetry was very varied and included the slight, the serious and the sexy. At its best it employed a fluent long-lined narrative, a rhythmically driven rhetoric. There are good examples of this, and of several jeux d'esprit, in his two volumes of selected poems:
249:(1940). These were supplemented by the autobiographically-based stories he wrote at the time, only three of which were published in the 1930s; they and the remaining four, plus a later account of his involvement in a gun-running deal, appeared only in 1985 (
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Milne regarded his return to Dublin in 1962 as a disaster, overshadowed as his four-year stay was by quarrels with the establishment, the discovery of betrayal by a friend and the death of his wife from lung cancer. The misery of those events is recorded in
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Hills, Ewart Milne, who worked long hours packing parcels of bandages, hypodermic needles and sterilizers and who travelled backwards and forwards across France with our convoys. During these missions Ewart Milne wrote some of his best stories and
265:(London 1962). Selection for the latter was left to Patrick Galvin and Thelma Milne prior to the move back to Dublin and over-emphasises the Irish side of his writing. In later years his poetry became increasingly more autobiographical.
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obituary put it, much as Yeats's later poetry sought to undo the twilit fashion set by his own earlier verse. In addition, Milne frequently entered into a poetic dialogue with his contemporaries, but besides Yeats these included
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From the 1970s onwards, the part he had played during the
Spanish Civil War brought his name back into notice and continues to do so. The poems he wrote on the subject were largely confined to a section in his second book,
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Between 1942–62 he was resident in
England and an active presence on the English literary scene. In particular he became associated with the poets grouped around the magazine
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in London, for whom he often acted as a medical courier. Milne has also described how he was once unwillingly involved in some arms deal while visiting Spain on their behalf.
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191:(1976). Returning to England in 1966, he settled in Bedford, where he died of a heart attack early in 1987. Politically he remained involved and spoke alongside
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Milne was twice married, first to
Kathleen Ida Bradner in 1927, by whom he had two sons; then in 1948 to Thelma Dobson, by whom he had two more sons.
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of Irish volunteers on the
Republican side, who had been captured and imprisoned in Spain. At one point Milne took part in a delegation to
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After SMA was wound up, Milne returned to
Ireland but remained politically active in support of the campaign for the release of
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During his time in
England and Spain, Milne got to know the left-leaning poets who supported the Republican cause, including
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at the rally on behalf of Biafra in 1968, but his views moved further to the right in later years. He wrote to
276:(#14) and an hour-long poetry reading that he gave in Dublin. He was working to complete another collection,
552:(Isle of Skye: Aquila Press 1983), pp.18–22; and in addition "A Completed Arc", his memorial to the poet in
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contributed to his political awakening and he came to
England to work as a voluntary administrator for the
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Milne's 80th birthday was celebrated by the publication of a book of poems largely centred on his youth,
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241:, among many others. In reality, the Irish sources that inspired Milne were quite other than Yeats.
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A portrait of Ewart Milne by Cecil F. Salkkeld, as it appears in Milne's book Forty North Fifty West
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340:: a mock epic with prologue and epilogue (Dublin: Dolmen 1953, title page illustrated by
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For further information, see Yann
Lovelock's "Ewart Milne: a biographical framework" in
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594:: Ewart Milne and Irish Literary Dissent in the Spanish Civil War, available in the
187:(1967); the artistic frustration of the time also resulted in the poems included in
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272:(Aquila, Isle of Skye, 1983), as well as a special issue of the literary magazine
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Once More to Tourney: A Book of Ballads and Light Verse, Serious, Gay and Grisly
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is Satanism"; he also sided with the Loyalist position in the Ulster conflict.
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I recall the quiet and valuable work of the young raven-haired poet from the
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The poems "Thinking of Artolas" and "Letter from Ireland" appear in
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298:(Dublin: Gayfield 1938 with six woodcuts by Cecil Salkeld)
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Time Stopped: A Poem Sequence with Prose Intermissions
356:, intro. by J. M. Cohen (London: Linden Press ), 96pp
280:, just before his death, but it was never published.
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on 13 April 1976, saying that he'd been "taken in by
617:, David Pierce, Cork University, 2000, pp. 548–550;
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support for this. In August 1938 he was reported in
569:, Poetry 86/6, Chicago, September 1955, pp. 366–368
144:(then working at the British embassy in Ireland).
328:: Selected Poems (London: Bodley Head 1950), 64pp
590:See for example Anna Kathryn Kendrick's thesis,
550:Ewart Milne: For His 80th Birthday: A Festchrift
390:, Poetry Ireland poems No. 14, December 1979, p
117:as being one of the 12 member committee of the
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8:
396:(Mornington: J. F. & B. Deane 1980), pp
350:(Tunbridge Wells: Pound Press 1953), 94, pp
310:(Dublin: Sign of Three Candles 1941), 102pp
80:Arthur Peacock, a British volunteer in the
224:school which had dominated his youth", as
316:(London: F. Muller Ltd. 1944), vi, 47, pp
136:. In 1938 his first collection of poems,
408:(Isle of Skye: Aquila Poetry 1983), 69pp
374:(Isle of Skye: Aquila Poetry 1976), 54pp
334:(Burnham-on-Crouch: Plow Poems 1951), pp
475:Gazebo, "Coming down O’Connell St." in
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304:(Dublin: Gayfield Press 1940), ix, 79pp
29:(25 May 1903 – 14 January 1987) was an
527:, Aquila, Isle of Skye, 1985, pp.69–77
650:Irish people of the Spanish Civil War
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636:, a frequently reprinted shaped poem
500:obituary,17 January 1987, quoted in
163:when he launched his own magazine,
512:Ireland in the Spanish Civil War:
322:(London: F. Muller Ltd. 1947), 22p
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615:Irish Writing in the 20th Century
539:, Aquila, Isle of Skye, 1976, p.4
50:, together with two other poets,
596:Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
556:(#52, June–Sept. 1987, pp.55–6).
502:Ireland in the Spanish Civil War
406:The Folded Leaf: Poems 1970–1980
368:(London: Plow Poems 1967), 165pp
422:(Portree : Aquila 1985), 101pp.
362:(London: Hutchinson 1962), 95pp
220:Milne "set himself against the
360:A Garland for the Green: Poems
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67:Spanish Medical Aid Committee
380:(Isle of Skye: Aquila &
402:(Isle of Skye: Aquila 1981)
302:Letter from Ireland: Verses
76:Spanish Medical Aid Armband
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665:People from County Wicklow
592:On Guard with the Junipers
332:Elegy for a Lost Submarine
619:available in Google Books
567:The Poetry of Ewart Milne
675:20th-century Irish poets
394:Deus Est Qui Regit Omnia
601:26 October 2009 at the
514:Irish medics in the SCW
263:A Garland for the Green
52:Charles Donnelly (poet)
488:(April 1969), pp. 4, 8
484:22 August 2021 at the
296:Forty North Fifty West
138:Forty North Fifty West
121:Irish club in London.
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82:International Brigades
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61:The background to the
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634:"Diamond Cut Diamond"
581:, London 1967, p. 148
115:The Worker's Republic
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440:Once More to Tourney
348:Life Arboreal: Poems
308:Listen Mangan: Poems
101:, the leader of the
537:Cantata Under Orion
372:Cantata Under Orion
326:Diamond Cut Diamond
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247:Letter from Ireland
189:Cantata Under Orion
261:(London 1950) and
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525:Drums Without End
466:(1952), p. 163-4.
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253:, Isle of Skye).
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660:1987 deaths
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462:(editors),
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165:Chanticleer
126:W. H. Auden
107:Westminster
48:Irish Front
27:Ewart Milne
644:Categories
456:Roy Fuller
427:References
320:Boding Day
231:Ezra Pound
99:Frank Ryan
384:1976), pp
226:The Times
205:and that
599:Archived
482:Archived
274:Prospice
207:Leninism
109:seeking
34:human".
90:Wicklow
84:wrote:
338:Galion
289:Poetry
216:Poetry
203:Stalin
93:poems.
44:Dublin
498:Times
413:Prose
284:Books
31:Irish
565:See
554:Iron
458:and
237:and
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149:Nine
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54:and
38:Life
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