View from the Big Hills

“Sitting in your chair you can travel farther than ever Columbus travelled and to lordlier worlds than his eyes had rested on. Are you not tired of surfaces? Come with me and we will bathe in the Fountains of Youth.” - Candle of Vision by A.E.

Like a deleted scene from Robin Williams' film, “The Dead Poets Society”, I was first introduced to the work of George William Russell at the age of 17 by an inspirational school teacher who also managed to turn me on to WB Yeats, Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard amongst others. Since that first lighting of the candle I’ve enjoyed delving back into the depths of AE’s work time and time again for inspiration, insight and illumination. George William Russell was a seer and mystic as well as gifted painter and poet. In addition to these things, he was also a vocal Irish Nationalist and prolific writer who has left a lasting legacy for the world.      Russell was born in the grey town of Lurgan (Irish “ an Lorgain”) in County Armagh, Ireland on the 10 th of April 1867. At the age of eleven his family moved southbound to Dublin. A few years later as a young man, he developed enduring friendships with W B Yeats and Art O’Murnaghan. Somewhat simi...

Ella Young was a rare breed indeed. An Irishwomen, she was brought up in a Protestant family as a Presbyterian, later becoming an ardent Irish Nationalist, who helped hide ammunitions and weapons after witnessing the "terrible beauty" of 1916 the Easter Uprising.   Friends with many trail blazers in the Emerald Isle's rocky history - Maud Gonne, William Butler Yeats and George Russell (known to most as the poet and visionary "AE") - she collected a vast array of Celtic stories, legends and myths from country folk. We can be grateful for the treasure trove of material she collected and saved for perpetuity. When the Treaty between England and Ireland was signed on 6th December 1922 creating the Irish Free State, she felt betrayed and hatched a plan to emigrate to the United States. She believed the conditions of the proposed Free State broke up and destroyed much of the magic of the Emerald Isle. By 1925 Ella had come to the United States, bringin...