Millikin, Richard Alfred

(1767-1815)

   Irish poet born at Castlemartyr, County Cork, of Scottish parentage. Although employed as an attorney in Cork he devoted more time to painting, poetry, and music. He started contributing verse to the Cork Monthly Miscellany in 1795, and two years later, he and his sister, an historical novelist, started a monthly magazine called The Casket, which appeared until 1798 when he joined the Royal Cork volunteers at the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion. In 1807 he published "The Riverside," a blank-verse poem, and in 1810 a short tale, The Slave of Surinam. In 1815 he laid the foundation of a society for the promotion of the fine arts in Cork. He was buried with a public funeral at Douglas, near Cork. One of his songs is "The Groves of Blarney, They Look so Charming." Other of his lyrics, included in Irish anthologies, are the "Groves of de Pool" and "Had I the Tun Which Bacchus Used." Some of his other poems: "A Lover's Oath," "A Plea for Pilgrimages," "Ode to a Clock," "Ode to Love," "Sonnet to Spring," "The Dream of Napoleon," "The Fisherman's Boy," "The Rose," "To Cynthia."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: ( Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger’s Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Reliques of Father Prout (Francis Sylvester Mahony). Oliver Yorke, ed. George Bell and Sons, 1889.