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 central figure in the group of devotees of theosophy which met in Dublin for many years.

Early life

Russell was born in Lurgan, County Armagh (not in Portadown as has sometimes been misreported), in Ireland, 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 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 he took a long time to recover. In the 1880s, Russell lived at the Theosophical Society lodge at 3, Upper Ely Place, sharing rooms with H. M. Magee, the brother of William Kirkpatrick Magee.

Russell started working as a draper's clerk, then for many years worked for the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), an agricultural co-operative society initiated by Horace Plunkett in 1894. In 1897, Plunkett needed an able organiser and W. B. Yeats 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, 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

thumb|Plaque on 84 [[Merrion Square, Dublin where Æ once worked (now 'Plunkett House')]]

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 Banks 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.

Russell supported the strikers during the Dublin Lockout, penning an open letter 'To the Masters of Dublin' which was published in Irish newspapers on 7 October 1913. He praised the strikers in a speech at Albert Hall on 1 November as "the true heroes of Ireland today, they are the descendants of Oscar, Cú Chulainn, the heroes of our ancient stories".

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 in which he opposed John Redmond's compromise on Home Rule. He became involved in the anti-partition Irish Dominion League when Plunkett founded the body in 1919.

Publisher

Russell was editor (from 1905 to 1923) of the Irish Homestead, the journal of the IAOS. His gifts as a writer and publicist gained him a wide influence on the cause of agricultural cooperation. 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.

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 could be forgiven a great deal, simply because "Seamus drinks too much". His interests were wide-ranging; he became a theosophist and wrote extensively on politics and economics, while continuing to paint and write poetry.</blockquote>

The visions intensified at age 17, around the time he began his friendship with Yeats.</blockquote>

thumb|Theosophist mural painted by Russell and Yeats, in the drawing room at 3 [[Ely Place, Dublin, former meeting place of the Theosophical Society. The painting shows nature spirits among a heavenly Deva (above) and a kneeling man over a terrestrial globe (below). Between them, a winged angelic being might represent an Augoeides or Yeats' daimon.]]

He gave various explanations for his visionary memories: they could be from past lives; modified memories; symbolic dreams; moments experienced by other beings who had some affinity with him; Akashic records (according to his belief in the Theosophist doctrine); telepathy and visions of remote places. He claimed that all these occurred to him, and that he could distinguish them by certain signs. He also believed that the deities of all civilizations were archetypes or thought-forms created by the collective mind, but relatively real, and he had visions of some in Ireland:</blockquote>

He claimed to see nature spirits and made paintings about them, such as the sídhe, elven or faerie beings in Irish folklore. On one occasion, he showed some drawings he had made of them to a peasant, who would have pointed out that he had already seen many of those entities. In 1889 he had traveled with W. B. Yeats to a town in County Galway, where Russell also painted these spirit beings, and a Druid is said to have appeared to them in vision. The previous year, in a letter to Yeats, Russell had stated:

<blockquote>The gods have returned to Erin and have centred themselves in the sacred mountains and blow the fires through the country. They have been seen by several in vision, they will awaken the magical instinct everywhere, and the universal heart of the people will turn to the old druidic beliefs. I note through the country the increased faith in faery things. The bells are heard from the mounds and sounding in the hollows of the mountains. A purple sheen in the inner air, perceptible at times in the light of day, spreads itself over the mountains. All this I can add my own testimony to. Furthermore, we were told that though now few we would soon be many, and that a branch of the school for the revival of the ancient mysteries to teach real things would be formed here soon. Out of Ireland will arise a light to transform many ages and peoples. There is a hurrying of forces and swift things going out and I believe profoundly that a new Avatar is about to appear and in all spheres the forerunners go before him to prepare. It will be one of the kingly Avatars, who is at once ruler of men and magic sage. I had a vision of him some months ago and will know him if he appears.

</blockquote>

George told friends of glimpses of past existences he had had, in Assyria, Pre-Columbian America, as a contemporary of William Blake and also, as he told Lady Constance Sitwell, of "brief but very vivid, of Druidic times in Ireland; of a Spanish life―riding into a walled town and fighting; one Egyptian period, and very, very far back, a life in India". In a conversation with Julian Huxley, he asked him about where his memories would have come from, and the biologist did not know how to respond to his argument.</blockquote>

The Candle of the Light is an autobiography in which he gives insight into his personal mysticism, without reference to other religious writers or Theosophist sources. It also contains a chapter on Celtic cosmogenesis.

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Poetry

thumb|right|Bust of George William Russell in [[Merrion Square, Dublin]]

  • 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, 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 1909)
  • 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)

Legacy

An "AE Russell: Glenveagh and Donegal" exhibition will run from 15 to 30 March 2025, in Glenveagh Castle, where Russell had been a regular guest of Arthur Kingsley Porter.

References

Works cited

Further reading

;Digital editions

  • Works by George William Russell at Project Gutenberg Australia
  • Works by George William Russell as part of the Cuala Press Collection at the Trinity College Dublin Library.
  • Russell at the Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania)
  • The Candle of Vision (1918)
  • Collected Poems by Æ (1913)

;Biographical information

  • Brief biography
  • Index entry for A.E. at Poets' Corner

;Other links

  • Finding aid to Mary Louisa Sutliff papers, including Russell correspondence, at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
  • George William Russell (Æ):A Forgotten Irish Mystic Article in Beshara Magazine in which Gabriel Rosenstock gives a poetic response to twelve visionary paintings by Æ, and Jane Clark and Peter Huitson give an overview of his life, work and legacy