[3] In his first years in London he had been weekly correspondent of the Dublin paper "The Nation", an advanced Nationalist organ, and entered Parliament as a Liberal being elected, after two defeats, member for Dundalk in 1880.

He generally acted with the Nationalists on Irish, and always on Catholic, questions, and, when he visited the United States of America in 1883, bore a flattering introduction from Charles Stewart Parnell.

In 1893 he represented Britain in the Bering Sea Arbitration, his speech against the United States' contentions lasting eleven days, and was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as a Knight Grand Cross (GCMG) "in recognition of services rendered in connection with the recent Behring Sea Arbitration" that year.

Lord Russell of Killowen revisited the United States in 1896 as the guest of the American Bar Association and delivered a notable address on arbitration.

In 1899 he represented Britain during the Venezuelan boundary dispute arbitration hearings which followed from the Venezuela Crisis of 1895, and displayed all his old power of separating vital points from obscuring details.

The following year he was attacked while on circuit by an internal malady, and, after a few weeks' illness, died in London, after receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church, of which he had been always a faithful and devoted member.

[17][18] The unanimous tribute paid him by the English and American Bar and by the people and journals of the most diverse political and religious views attested that, despite his masterful character as lawyer, judge, and parliamentarian, and his stalwart loyalty to his faith and country, he had attained a rare and widespread popularity.

With a keen and orderly mind, a resolute will, great capacity for work, and severe official dignity, he combined sensibility of temperament, a spirit of helpfulness and comradeship, and a dreamer's devotion to ideals.