Life
Ulster Protestant Home Ruler; given office of Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction by Liberal government; granted and withdrew money for pursuit of Sir Horace Plunkett’s IAOS scheme.
Commentary
P. D. Kenny [as “Pat”], My Little Farm (Dublin: Maunsel 1915), Pt. III - “Visitors”: ‘Of all my distinguished visitors [to his farm], the one who interested me most, and whom I appear to have delighted least, was Mr. T. W. Russell; the only one who took pains to arrive in my absence, coming the way, inquiring and going past on previous occasions, when he knew he could find me on the place. In fairness to him, I think his fear to meet me was not merely personal. We had met before, not unpleasantly, on neutral ground, and I could remember him as a man who, with his back to the fire in a club and a look of Knoxious self satisfaction in his face, could talk down any number of the most eloquent men on any subject, with the sole exception of Professor Oldham. A distinction like that makes one remember a man.’ (p.136; see further, under Kenny - as supra.)
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References
Libraries: Belfast Linen Hall Library holds Ireland and the Empire. Belfast Public Library holds Ireland and the Empire 1800-1900 (1901); The Irish Land Question Up-to-date (1902).
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Notes
W. B. Yeats: Russell was a candidate for the post of Curator of the National Museum, Dublin, given to Count Plunkett to the anger of W. B. Yeats, who favoured Hugh Lane as the ‘best man’ [See A. N. Jaffares, New Commentary on the Poems, 1984, p.125].
Steady on!: References to attacks on Russell in the Irish Homestead, 1912, are recounted in Maurice Headlam, Irish Reminiscences (1947), p.35; see also p.52.
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