Russell, Matthew, 1834-1912

Matthew Russell, SJ was born on July 13, 1834 in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland, to Margaret (Mullen) Hamill and Arthur Russell. He was educated at Castleknock College and St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and entered the Society of Jesus on March 7, 1857. Russell was ordained in 1864, and taught at Crescent College, outside Limerick, until 1873. From 1873 to 1877, he was a priest at Saint Francis Xavier Church in Dublin.

Russell founded The Irish Monthly in 1873 with Thomas Aloysius Finlay, a colleague from Crescent College. The initial title of the journal was Catholic Ireland. The Irish Monthly had a reputation for publishing the work of young, upcoming writers and printed some of the earliest writings of Hilaire Belloc and Oscar Wilde. Russell was the editor until his death in 1912. He was also a poet, and published collections of devotional verse such as Emmanuel: a book of eucharistic verses (1880) and Erin verses, Irish and Catholic (1881).

In 1874, he worked at Catholic University in St. Stephen's Green and in 1886, he was appointed as spiritual father at University College, Dublin. Russell died on September 12, 1912 in Dublin, Ireland.