family town house. They lived in Dominick Street until 1916, when the lease ran out and they all moved to a house on the Moore Abbey estate in Palmerstown.
Letitia volunteered to work as a nurse at the outbreak of the War in 1914. Both Eva and Letitia exhibited paintings of Holland in Dublin in 1915, although these must have been painted prior to the outbreak of the War, as the Germans occupied that Country for the entirety of the 1914 to 1918 period.
Although Eva and Letitia had had to move out of Hamwood to make way for their brother and his family in 1913, this evidently did not interfere with the warmth of their family relations. Eva painted sympathetic portraits of her brother Charles, and of his wife, at Hamwood in the 1920’s. Indeed much of Eva’s art was focussed on portraits of her family and on local landscapes.
One sister, Lily, did marry and another, Amy, became a lawyer in New York. This left their mother living with three of her daughters – Eva and Letitia as well as Connie who had developed a garden consultancy. The household continued to receive an annuity from the Hamilton estate, but it is evident that they had limited financial means. Letitia travelled everywhere on a bicycle with her painting gear. They did, however, manage to go abroad to paint, visiting Venice and Dubrovnik amongst other places. They also travelled extensively within Ireland, as witnessed by landscapes by Letitia of places as widely apart as Glengariff and Achill.
Their financial positions did not allow them to buy a house, and so they moved from one comfortable rented property to another, mainly in the Lucan/Castleknock area. It is more speculation, but it is probable that the changes of domestic scene and the associated stress contributed to their artistic development, and helped Letitia in particular to develop her artistic style progressively throughout her life.
The sisters lived through a period of dramatic political change, growing up in an ascendancy atmosphere that was still confident in its position, but maturing in a dramatically different independent Ireland which, at the time, showed comparatively little regard for the immense cultural contribution made by a family like the Hamilton’s both through their art and through their contribution to the development of gardening in Ireland.
Gerald Francis Charles, brother of Eva and Letitia was born in 1877. After prep school in Hailybury in England he then went on to Downton Agricultural College. Not long after he became a land agent. The job of land agent entailed many duties, which would nowadays be performed by a solicitor. Aside from collecting rents he also arranged marriage settlements and acted as an intermediary in disputes. The agency of the Hamiltons extended as far as Kilkenny, Wicklow and most of Kildare. The Guinness family were also one of their employers, as they possessed much property in the Dublin area such as St. Patrick’s hospital.
He would often travel by train to collect rents on the 'Galey days', as they were called. Usually this took place in the town hall of wherever he was collecting the rents. Tenants then came to have their receipts signed and if they had any problems they would have the opportunity to voice them. Both Charles Gerald Francis and his father Charles Robert spent almost every summer working from Dominick Street. From here they would also be able to visit relations and attend the Kildare Street club.