Susan L. Mitchell

Susan Langstaff Mitchell (1866 – 1926) was an Irish writer and poet, known for her satirical verse.

She was born in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, one of eight children of Michael Thomas Mitchell. Her father was manager of the Provincial Bank there. He died when she was six years old and she was sent to Dublin to be educated, while her mother, Kate (née Cullen), moved to Sligo to have her sons educated there. Susan lived in Dublin with two aunts.

In 1900 she travelled to London for treatment of a hearing problem associated with tuberculosis and stayed with John B. Yeats and his family. The illness was to remain with her all of her life. After her return to Dublin she worked as a journalist and became assistant editor of the Irish Homestead, under George Russell. Thus began a close friendship and professional relationship that would last until her death. She contributed essays, reviews, drama notes and poems, many pseudonymously. Her poems first appeared in the holiday feature of the Homestead each year, entitled "A Celtic Christmas." Some of her lyrics were contained in New Songs (1904), a collection edited by Russell which also contained pieces by Padraic Colum and Alice Milligan.

A ballad which she wrote in 1905, "The Ballad of Shawe-Taylor and Hugh Lane", dealing with a controversy involving Hugh Lane, was described by Thomas Bodkin as "a delicious comic ballad, which she sang herself, in a pleasant throaty voice, at many gatherings in Dublin drawing-rooms and studios." She became acquainted with William Butler Yeats, Padraic Colum, George Moore and others. Although she always had a touch of humour in her writing, she wrote a book-length study of Moore and his work that was not a little acerbic.

She lived with her sister Jane, an actress, and mother in Rathgar. Her mother dictated her memoirs to her, which were later published. She published her first book of poems, Aids to the Immortality of Certain Persons in Ireland, in 1908. Its most successful piece was a parody of Rudyard Kipling's Recessional, entitled "Ode to the British Empire". This book was re-issued in an enlarged edition in 1913, followed by The Living Chalice.

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