PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 30

PEOPLE WE HEAR ABOUT

. George W. Russell (“H5”), who, according to cablegrams, has been-appointed a member of the Irish Convention, is not to be > confused with George W. E. Russsell, ex-M.P., the irrepressible writer of reminiscences. “G.W.E.” is English; George is unmistakably Irish. It will be remembered that a suggestion of his in regard to- the Convention drew letters of approval from quite a number of Catholic prelates, Protestant dignitaries, and public men. “yE” is a dreamer and a' mystic. If you went into his office at Plunkett House, Merrion Square, Dublin, you would find it more like a painter’s studio than a place of business. He is enough of a poet to get a place in the Oxford Book of Dublin Verse, and enough of a -painter to get his pictures hung at foreign exhibitions. His house in Rathgar Avenue is a centre for intellectuals, poets, and rebels. It was he who discovered'James Stephens, one of the- most successful writers on the “rebellion.” So that it comes with a shock to learn that he helps to earn butter for his bread by being secretary to Sir Horace Plunkett’s lively offspring, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. He is also the editor of an agricultural journal, the Irish Homestead, which he has made readable by many, lovers of literature who wouldn’t know the difference between a buff Orpington and a pure merino. The Most Rev. Dr. Ilsley, Archbishop, of Birmingham, has been the recipient of many congratulations on having entered his 80th year in good health. To the people in his diocese, non-Catholics as well as Catholics, and to a large number of others who have had opportunities of knowing what a great amount of work the Archbishop has done for the Church in this country, it is, we are sure, a cause of much pleasure that his Grace is able, at his advanced age, to discharge the onerous duties of his exalted office. Throughout his long career Dr. Ilsley has given constant proofs of administrative prudence and skill. It is nearly thirty years since he took over the government of the diocese from his able predecessor, Archbishop Ullathorne, and ever since progresss under his rule has been steady and uninterrupted. By his devotion to his duties, for the discharge of which he was well prepared, not, only by his clerical training ; and experience, but also by his knowledge as a native of the Midlands, he has gained hosts of friends. It was a profound gratification to them to learn that the Holy Father, recognising his ■ merits, had made him Metropolitan of the new ecclesiastical province of - Birmingham, "and they will hope and pray that he may be granted yet a considerable number of years to'benefit the Church which he has served so faithfully and so zealously. On June 16, Dr. James Augustin McFaul, Bishop of Trenton, New Jersey, for nearly a quarter of a century, died at his residence in Trenton in his 68th year. Bishop McFaul was a remarkable man in many ways. He took a deep interest in civic matters ; he was typically an American Irishman, and his influence was felt far beyond his own flock, and he was the father of the modern method of organising Catholics for civic purposes in the Catholic Federation. He lived to see the little organism which he planted in New Jersey spread through the principal Sees in the United States, and become a great power of nearly 4,000,000 members, recognised as an adjunct to good citizenship by all who toot: the trouble to examine its objects and methods. And the idea caught on in England, New Zealand, and the various States of Australia, till the Catholic Federation idea seems to be destined to become the method of utilising the articulate voice of the Christian civic problems in this, the layman’s century. Bishop McFaul never missed the annual convention of the Catholic Federation held in the principal cities of the United States in August of each year. Even>wlien intellectual and oratorical giants such as Cardinals Gibbons, Farley, and O’Connell, and Archbishops Ireland, Messmer, and Mundelein appeared at the last conference, Bishop McFaul’s short address seemed to readers

at a distance to point *out the clearest •? arid v.the most practical path for the Federation. . He was , always an active member of the executive, and it is safe to say that never was a step taken until ' Bishop McFaul was consulted. As a writer and lecturer, his fame was nation-wide. He was a member of the New Jersey State Tuberculosis Commission, the United States-Cath-' olic Historical Society, and the Irish American Historical Society. He reorganised the Ancient Order of Hibernians.