RICHMOND HILL IN RATHMINES
FEATURING THE NEW EMPIRE RESTAURANT
THE NEW EMPIRE RESTAURANT USUALLY FEATURES SOME MURALS [RICHMOND HILL RATHMINES]
Last week I visited Rathmines and was disappointed to discover that the walls of the restaurant did not feature any street art but this gave me an excuse to discuss Richmond Hill.
Two notable Irish women, poet Dora Sigerson Shorter and novelist Annie M. P. Smithson, shared a connection to Richmond Hill in Dublin. Dora Sigerson Shorter spent part of her childhood there, while Annie M. P. Smithson resided at number 12 until her death.
Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter (16 August 1866 – 6 January 1918) was a prominent Irish poet and sculptor. After marrying Clement King Shorter, an English journalist and literary critic, in 1895, she wrote under the name Dora Sigerson Shorter. Born in Dublin, she was the eldest of four children of surgeon and writer George Sigerson and writer Hester Varian. The Sigerson family home at 3 Clare Street was a hub for artists and writers, exposing Dora to key figures of the burgeoning Irish Literary Revival. She studied at the Dublin School of Art alongside W.B. Yeats. A significant figure in the Revival, she published numerous poetry collections from 1893 onwards. Her sister, Hester Sigerson Piatt, was also a writer, and Dora's circle of friends included writers and poets such as Katharine Tynan, Rose Kavanagh, and Alice Furlong. Following her marriage, she lived in London until her death at the age of 51. While the exact cause of death remains undisclosed, her friend Katharine Tynan suggested in a biographical sketch that she died of a broken heart following the 1916 executions.
Annie Mary Patricia Smithson (26 September 1873 – 21 February 1948) was an Irish novelist, poet, and passionate Nationalist. Born Margaret Anne Jane into a Protestant family in Sandymount, Dublin, she later adopted the names Anne Mary Patricia upon converting to Catholicism. Her parents, who were first cousins, raised her until her father's early death. Her mother remarried Peter Longshaw, a chemical factory owner, around 1881. Smithson disliked her stepfather, always referring to him as "Mr Longshaw," and the marriage produced five more children.
Initially aspiring to a career in journalism, Smithson instead trained as a nurse and midwife in London and Edinburgh before returning to Dublin in 1900. In 1901, she worked as a district nurse in Milltown, County Down, where she fell in love with a married colleague, Dr James Manton. Unable to pursue the relationship, she left Milltown in 1906. Although they maintained correspondence, she destroyed his letters after her conversion to Catholicism in March 1907, a pivotal moment that also ignited her fervent Republican and Nationalist sympathies. She joined Cumann na mBan and actively campaigned for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election.
During the Irish Civil War, Smithson sided with the Republicans and nursed those involved in the siege at Moran's Hotel. Imprisoned by Free State forces in 1922, she was dramatically rescued from Mullingar prison by Linda Kearns McWhinney and Muriel MacSwiney, who posed as a Red Cross delegation. Her political convictions led to her resignation from the Queen's Nurses Committee and a shift to private nursing. From 1924 to 1929, she worked in the impoverished Dublin Liberties, and her experiences there informed a series of articles on child welfare published in the Evening Mail.
From 1929 to 1942, she served as Secretary and Organiser of the Irish Nurses Organisation, contributing to the Irish Nurses' Magazine and editing the Irish Nurses Union Gazette. Her literary career began in 1917 with the publication of her best-selling novel, Her Irish Heritage, dedicated to those who perished in the 1916 Easter Rising. She went on to publish twenty novels and two short story collections, including successful titles like By Strange Paths and The Walk of a Queen. Her writing, often romantic in style, drew heavily on her personal experiences, with nationalism and Catholicism as recurring themes. Her autobiography, Myself – and Others, was published in 1944.
From 1932, Smithson shared a house in Rathmines, Dublin, with her stepsister and her family. She died of heart failure at 12 Richmond Hill, Dublin, and was interred in Whitechurch, County Dublin. Her novels are featured in Brian Friel's 1990 play, Dancing at Lughnasa, and several of her works were reprinted by the Mercier Press between 1989 and 1990.
