Later Life
Birrell did not defend his seat in the 1918 general election, nor did he ever return to Ireland. In 1929, he accepted an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, but storms in the Irish Sea prevented him from making the crossing and he had to receive his degree in absentia. He returned to literature with a further volume of essays and book reviews, More Obiter Dicta (1920) and a book on his father-in-law, Frederick Locker-Lampson. He died in London on 20 November 1933, aged eighty-three. His autobiography, Things Past Redress was published posthumously.
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