Dates

• Existence: 1867 - 1935

Biographical Note

George William Russell was born in Lurgan, Ulster, Ireland, on April 10, 1867. In 1878 his family moved to Dublin. He experienced visions, which affected him greatly and incited his lifelong obsession with the supernatural, in particular the practice of theosophy invented by Madame Blavatsky. He felt strongly that Ireland's future lay in a spiritual return to its old gods. Russell began attending Rathmines College in 1882, but withdrew in 1887 to devote himself to the study of meditation and spirituality. When Russell met W. B. Yeats during his college years, they quickly bonded over their shared interests in mysticism, literature, and art. Their friendship influenced the work of both greatly, and Russell later served as the inspiration for the character Michael Robartes in Yeats's book of poetry, Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921). In 1890 Russell began working as a clerk and joined the Theosophical Society. A year later he moved into The Household, a community of theosophists. The Household produced The Irish Theosophists journal in which Russell published regularly under the pseudonym "AE." He also published his first collection of poetry, Homeward: Songs by the Way, during this period. In 1897 Russell began working for the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, and became the editor of its journal, The Irish Homestead, in 1905. Over the course of the next twenty years, Russell published extensively. During the Irish Civil War, Russell supported independence, but as a pacifist was opposed to the violence on both sides. In 1922 he was offered a seat in the Senate but refused it; instead, he became the editor of The Irish Statesman, which he headed until it closed in 1930. Russell died in 1935.

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