George William Russell

George William Russell
George William Russell
Born	(1867-04-10)10 April 1867 Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland
Died	17 July 1935(1935-07-17) (aged 68) Bournemouth, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	Irish
Other names	Æ, Æon
Citizenship	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Irish Free State
Education	Rvd. Edward Power's school, 3 Harrington Street, Dublin
Alma mater	Metropolitan School of Art
Occupation	Author, poet, editor in chief, critic, painter
Known for	Poetry, painting
Home town	Dublin

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

Russell was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, (not as is often said in Portadown), 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 he was eleven years old. The death of his much loved sister Mary, aged 18, was a blow from which it took him a long time to recover. He was educated at Rathmines School and the Metropolitan School of Art, where he began a lifelong, if sometimes contentious, friendship with William Butler Yeats. 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.

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's in his 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.