George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935), who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (often written AE or A.E.), was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and

Irish nationalist Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...

. He was also a writer on

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

, and a central figure in the group of devotees of

theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

which met in Dublin for many years.

Early life

Russell was born in

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh. Lurgan is about south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin railway line. It had a population ...

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and ha ...

(not in

Portadown Portadown () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population of a ...

as has sometimes been misreported), 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 ...

, the second son of Thomas Russell and Mary Armstrong. His father, the son of a small farmer, became an employee of Thomas Bell and Co., a prosperous firm of

linen Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant. Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...

drapers. The family relocated to Dublin, where his father had a new offer of employment, when George was eleven years old. The death of his beloved sister Mary, aged 18, was a blow from which it took him a long time to recover. He was educated at

Rathmines Rathmines () is an affluent inner suburb on the Southside of Dublin in Ireland. It lies three kilometres south of the city centre. It begins at the southern side of the Grand Canal and stretches along the Rathmines Road as far as Rathgar to t ...

School and the Metropolitan School of Art, where he began a lifelong, if sometimes contentious, friendship with

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 ...

.Boylan, Henry, ''A Dictionary of Irish Biography'', p. 384, 3rd. edit., (1998) In the 1880s, Russell lived at the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...

lodge at 3, Upper Ely Place, sharing rooms with H. M. Magee, the brother of

William Kirkpatrick Magee William Kirkpatrick Magee (16 January 1868 – 9 May 1961), was an Irish author, editor, and librarian, who as an essayist and poet adopted the pen-name of John Eglinton. He became head librarian of the National Library of Ireland, after opposing t ...

. Russell started working as a

draper Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period ...

's clerk, then for many years worked for the

Irish Agricultural Organisation Society The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was an agricultural association in Ireland which advocated, and helped to organise, agricultural cooperativism, including mutual credit facilities. From its establishment by Sir Horace Plunkett ...

(IAOS), an agricultural co-operative society initiated by

Horace Plunkett Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (24 October 1854 – 26 March 1932), was an Anglo-Irish agricultural reformer, pioneer of agricultural cooperatives, Unionist MP, supporter of Home Rule, Irish Senator and author. Plunkett, a younger brother of Jo ...

in 1894. In 1897, Plunkett needed an able organiser and

suggested Russell, who became Assistant Secretary of the IAOS.

Family

In 1898, he married Violet North; they had two surviving sons, Brian and Diarmuid, as well as a third son who died soon after birth.

Frank O'Connor Frank O'Connor (born Michael Francis O'Donovan; 17 September 1903 – 10 March 1966) was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry (original and translations from Irish), dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on a ...

, who was a close friend of Russell in their later years, remarked that his family life was something of a mystery even to those who knew him best: O'Connor noticed that he never spoke about his wife and seemed to be at odds with his sons (although O'Connor himself liked both of them). While his marriage was rumoured to be unhappy, all his friends agreed that Violet's death in 1932 was a great blow to Russell.

Politician

George William Russel (AE) plaque, Dublin, Ireland

He was an able lieutenant to Plunkett, and travelled extensively throughout Ireland as a spokesman for the IAOS; he was mainly responsible for developing the credit societies and establishing

Co-operative Bank Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world. Cooperative banking, as discussed here, includes retail banking carr ...

s in the south and west of the country, the numbers of which increased to 234 by 1910. Russell and Plunkett made a good team, with each gaining much from the association with the other. As an officer of the IAOS, he could not express political opinions freely, but made no secret of the fact that he considered himself a Nationalist. During the 1913

Dublin Lock-out The Dublin lock-out was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers that took place in Ireland's capital and largest city, Dublin. The dispute, lasting from 26 August 1913 to 18 January 1914, is often vie ...

he wrote an open letter to the ''Irish Times'' criticizing the attitude of the employers, then spoke on it in England, which purportedly helped bring the crisis to an end. Russell definitely sympathized with the Easter Rising and saw it as in line with his views on Goidelic Nationalist "traditional and natural communism", but due to his personal leanings toward pacifism, his individual involvement took the form of editing and writing rather than direct participation in the significantly violent activities that took place. He was an independent delegate to the 1917–18

Irish Convention The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the ''Irish question'' and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wid ...

in which he opposed

John Redmond John Edward Redmond (1 September 1856 – 6 March 1918) was an Irish nationalism, Irish nationalist politician, barrister, and Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He was best known as lead ...

's compromise on

Home Rule Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wit ...

.''Irish Times'', 18 July 1935. p. 8 He became involved in the anti-partition

Irish Dominion League The Irish Dominion League was an Irish political party and movement in Britain and Ireland which advocated Dominion status for Ireland within the British Empire, and opposed partition of Ireland into separate southern and northern jurisdictions ...

when Plunkett founded the body in 1919.

Publisher

Russell was editor (from 1905-23) of the ''

Irish Homestead The ''Irish Homestead'' was the weekly publication of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS). It was founded in 1895 by Horace Plunkett. History The aim of the paper was to publicise and propagate the objectives of the IAOS, which set ...

'', the journal of the IAOS. His gifts as a writer and publicist gained him a wide influence on the cause of agricultural cooperation. He then became editor of ''

The Irish Statesman The ''Irish Statesman'' was a weekly journal promoting the views of the Irish Dominion League. It ran from 27 June 1919 to June 1930, edited by Warre B. Wells, assisted by James Winder Good, and with contributions from W. B. Yeats, George Bern ...

'', the paper of the Irish Dominion League, which merged with the ''Irish Homestead'', from 15 September 1923 until 12 April 1930. With the demise of this newspaper, he was for the first time in his adult life without a job, and there were concerns that he could find himself in a state of poverty, as he had never earned very much money from his paintings or books. At one point his son Diarmuid was reduced to selling off early drafts of his father's works to raise money, to the annoyance of Russell, who accused the lad, with whom his relations were not good, of "raiding the wastepaper baskets". Unbeknownst to him meetings and collections were organized and later that year at Plunkett House he was presented by Father T. Finlay with a cheque for £800. This enabled him to visit the United States the next year, where he was well received all over the country and his books sold in large numbers. He used the pseudonym "AE", or more properly, " Æ". This derived from an earlier ''

Æon , commonly written AEON Co., Ltd., is a Japanese multinational holding company of ÆON Group. It has its headquarters in Mihama-ku, Chiba, Chiba Prefecture. His first book of poems, ''Homeward: Songs by the Way'' (1894), established him in what was known as the

Irish Literary Revival The Irish Literary Revival (also called the Irish Literary Renaissance, nicknamed the Celtic Twilight) was a flowering of Irish literary talent in the late 19th and early 20th century. It includes works of poetry, music, art, and literature. O ...

, where Æ met the young

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

in 1902 and introduced him to other Irish literary figures, including William Butler Yeats. He appears as a character in the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode of Joyce's ''

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

'', where he dismisses Stephen's theories on Shakespeare. Dedalus borrows money from him and then remarks: "

A.E.I.O.U. "A.E.I.O.U." (sometimes A.E.I.O.V.) was a symbolic device coined by Emperor Frederick III (1415–1493) and historically used as a motto by the Habsburgs. One note in his notebook (discovered in 1666), though not in the same hand, explains it in ...

" His collected poems were published in 1913, with a second edition in 1926. He designed the famous Starry Plough flag for the

Irish Citizen Army The Irish Citizen Army (), or ICA, was a small paramilitary group of trained trade union volunteers from the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) established in Dublin for the defence of workers' demonstrations from the Dublin M ...

which was unveiled on 5 April 1914 and flown during the Easter Rising. His house at 17

Rathgar Rathgar (), is a suburb of Dublin in Ireland. It was originally a village which from 1862 was part of the township of Rathmines and Rathgar; it was absorbed by the growing city and became a suburb in 1930. It lies about three kilometres south of ...

Avenue in Dublin became a meeting-place at the time for everyone interested in the economic and artistic future of Ireland: his Sunday evenings "at home" were a notable feature of Dublin literary life.

Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to: * Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician * Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...

, the effective leader of the new Government, became acquainted with Russell in the last months of his life:

Oliver St. John Gogarty Oliver Joseph St. John Gogarty (17 August 1878 – 22 September 1957) was an Irish poet, author, otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist. He served as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel ...

, a regular guest at Russell's Sundays "at home" believed that these two men, so utterly unalike in most ways, nonetheless developed a deep mutual respect. Russell's generosity and hospitality were legendary: Frank O'Connor fondly recalled "the warmth and kindness, which enfolded you like an old fur coat". He was the most loyal of friends, and in the notoriously fractious Dublin literary world Russell tried to keep the peace between his endlessly quarrelling colleagues: even the abrasive

Seamus O'Sullivan Seumas or Seamus O'Sullivan (born James Sullivan Starkey; 17 July 1879 – 24 March 1958) was an Irish poetry, Irish poet and editor of ''The Dublin Magazine''. His father, William Starkey (1836-1918), a physician, was also a poet and a friend of S ...

could be forgiven a great deal, simply because "Seamus drinks too much". His interests were wide-ranging; he became a

theosophist Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...

and wrote extensively on politics and economics, while continuing to paint and write poetry. Æ claimed to be a

clairvoyant Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...

, able to view various kinds of spiritual beings, which he illustrated in paintings and drawings. He was noted for his exceptional kindness and generosity towards younger writers:

termed him "the man who was the father to three generations of Irish writers", and

Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh (21 October 1904 – 30 November 1967) was an Irish poet and novelist. His best-known works include the novel '' Tarry Flynn'', and the poems "On Raglan Road" and "The Great Hunger". He is known for his accounts of Irish life t ...

called him "a great and holy man".

P. L. Travers Pamela Lyndon Travers (; born Helen Lyndon Goff; 9 August 1899 – 23 April 1996) was an Australian-British writer who spent most of her career in England. She is best known for the ''Mary Poppins'' series of books, which feature the eponymous ...

, famous as the creator of ''

Mary Poppins It may refer to: * ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fantasy novels that introduced the character. * Mary Poppins (character), the nanny with magical powers. * ''Mary Poppins'' (film), a 1964 Disney film sta ...

'', was yet another writer who gratefully recalled Russell's help and encouragement. He features, scandalously, in Chapter 13 of Anthony Burgess' novel ''

Earthly Powers ''Earthly Powers'' is a panoramic saga novel of the 20th century by Anthony Burgess first published in 1980. It begins with the "outrageously provocative" first sentence: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with ...

''.

Last years and death

Russell, who had become increasingly unhappy in the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between th ...

(which according to Yeats he called "a country given over to the Devil"), moved to England soon after his wife's death in 1932. Despite his failing health he went on a final lecture tour in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, but returned home utterly exhausted. He died of cancer in

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

in 1935. His body was brought back to Ireland and interred in

Mount Jerome Cemetery Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

, Dublin.

Poetry

*''Homeward Songs by the Way'' (Dublin: Whaley 1894) *''The Earth Breath and Other Poems'' (NY&London: John Lane 1896) *''The Nuts of Knowledge'' (Dublin:

Dun Emer Press The Dun Emer Press (''fl.'' 1902–1908) was an Irish private press founded in 1902 by Evelyn Gleeson, Elizabeth Yeats and her brother William Butler Yeats, part of the Celtic Revival. It was named after the legendary Emer and evolved into the Cu ...

, 1903) *''The Divine Vision and Other Poems'' (London: Macmillan; NY: Macmillan 1904) *''By Still Waters'' (Dublin: Dun Emer Press 1906) *''Deirdre'' (Dublin: Maunsel 1907) *''Collected Poems'' (London: Macmillan 1913) (2nd. edit. 1926) *''Gods of War, with Other Poems'' (Dublin: priv. 1915) *''Imaginations and Reveries'' (Dublin & London: Maunsel 1915) *''Candle of Vision: Autobiography of a Mystic'' (London: Macmillan, 1918) *''Voices of the Stones'' (London: Macmillan, 1925) *''Midsummer Eve'' (NY: Crosby Gaige 1928) *''Enchantment and Other Poems'' (NY: Fountain; London: Macmillan 1930); *''Vale and Other Poems'' (London: Macmillan 1931) *''Song and Its Fountains'' (London: Macmillan 1932) *''Verses for Friends'' (Dublin: Printed for the writer 1932) *''The House of Titans and Other Poems'' (London: Macmillan 1934) *''Selected Poems'' (London: Macmillan 1935).

Novels

*''The Interpreters'' (1922) *''The Avatars'' (1933)

Essays

*''AE in the Irish Theosophist'' (1892–97) *''The Hero In Man'' (The Orpheus Press 1910) *''The Renewal of Youth'' (The Orpheus Press 1911) *''Ideals of the New Rural Society'', in: Horace Plunkett, Ellice Pilkington, George Russell (AE), ''The United Irishwomen - Their place, work and ideals''. With a Preface by Rev. T. A. Finlay (Dublin: Maunsel 1911 *''Co-operation and Nationality: A guide for rural reformers from this to the next generation'' (Dublin: Maunsel 1914 ) *''The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity'' (Dublin: Maunsel 1916) *''The Candle of Vision'' (London: Macmillan 1918) *''The Inner and the Outer Ireland'' ( Dublin, Talbot Press, 1921) (Pamphlet) *''Song and Its Fountains'' (1932) *''The Living Torch'' (1937)

References

Sources

* Allen, Nicholas: ''George Russel (AE) and the New Ireland 1905–30'', Four Courts Press Dublin (2003) *

, ''A Memoir of AE, George William Russell'' (1937)

External links

Brief biography

*

at

Project Gutenberg Australia Project Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. It is a sister site of Project Gutenberg, though there is no formal relationship between the two organizations. The site hosts free eboo ...

* *
Russell at the Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania)

''Collected Poems by Æ'' (1913)
*

Finding aid to Mary Louisa Sutliff papers, including Russell correspondence, at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, George William 1867 births 1935 deaths People from Lurgan Irish newspaper editors Irish Dominion League 19th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish painters Irish male painters Irish poets Irish Theosophists

George William Russell George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935), who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (often written AE or A.E.), was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and Irish nationalist. He was also a writer on mysticism, and a centra ...

Alumni of the National College of Art and Design People from County Dublin Ulysses (novel) characters Flag designers