Annie P. Smithson

Annie P. Smithson (1873 – 1948) was an Irish novelist, poet and Nationalist.

She was born into a Protestant family in Sandymount, Dublin. She became a nurse and midwife and worked as a district nurse in different parts of Ireland. [cite book|last=Corbett|first= Eileen |year=1992|title=Dublin in Fiction|pages=p. 161|location=Dublin|publisher= Dublin Public Libraries|id= ISBN 0-94684-1268]

She converted to Catholicism and became a fervent Republican and Nationalist. She took the Republican side in the Irish Civil War. In 1922 she was imprisoned by Free State forces and was rescued from Mullingar prison by Linda Kearns McWhinney and Muriel MacSwiney, posing as a Red Cross delegation.

She was Secretary and Organiser of the Irish Nurses Organisation 1929 - 1942.

In 1917 she published her first novel, "Her Irish Heritage", which became a best-seller. Other successful novels included "By Strange Paths" and "The Walk of a Queen". In 1944 she published her autobiography, "Myself - and Others". [cite book|last=Boylan|first= Henry |year=1998|title=A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition|pages=p. 405|location=Dublin|publisher= Gill and MacMillan|id= ISBN 0-7171-2945-4] She died in Dublin and was buried in Whitechurch, County Dublin.

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