RUSSELL, GEORGE WILLIAM Irish writer and painter, known as 7E, was born at Lurgan, Co. Armagh, April 1 o, 1867. Educated at Rathmines School, Dublin, he en tered an accountant's office, but in 1897 joined the Irish Agri cultural Organisation Society, and became an organiser of agricultural societies. From 1904 to 1923 he was editor of The Irish Homestead, the organ of the agricultural co-operative move ment. In 1923 he became editor of The Irish Statesman.
Russell's publications include Homeward: Songs by the Way (1894) ; The Earth Breath (1897) ; Literary Ideals in Ireland (1899), a collection of essays written in collaboration with W. B. Yeats, W. Larminie and John Eglinton; Ideals in Ireland (Igo' ), another book of collaborative essays; The Nuts of Knowledge (1903), a selection of lyrics. In 19o4 appeared two books of verse, the Divine Vision and New Poems, an anthology of verses by young Irish poets; and a collection of mystical tales, The Mask of Apollo. Other books of verse include By Still Waters
(1906), Collected Poems (1913), and Gods of War (1915). The Hero in Man (1909) and The Renewal of Youth (191 I) were imaginative musings, as was Imaginations and Reveries (1915). In 1906 appeared Some Irish Essays, and in 1907 Deirdre, a three-act play. Co-operation and Nationality and The Rural Community, published in 1912 and 1913 respectively, were pamphlets embodying co-operative ideals, which are further de veloped in his The National Being, Thoughts on an Irish Polity (1916). The Candle of Vision, an attempt to discover the ele ment of truth in the mystical imagination, appeared in 1918. This was followed by The Interpreters (192o), a symposium in the Platonic fashion. A volume of poems, Voices of the Stones, appeared in 1925. He received the honorary degree of Litt.D. from Dublin University in July, 1929.