Pocket watch Hopkins & Hopkins

Gents’ silver ‘Waltham’ pocket watch purchased c. 1916 by Florence J. Burke (1878 – 1972), a racehorse owner from Kildare town in Hopkins and Hopkins, jewellers, silversmiths, and watchmakers, 1 O’Connell [formerly Sackville] Street Lower, Dublin.

This shop, located at the corner of O’Connell Street and Eden Quay, was occupied by members of the Kimmage Garrison, a group of Irish Volunteers mainly from Scotland and England, during Easter Week 1916. Burke knew the shop’s then and managing director, Diarmuid F. O’Leary, and recently deceased founder and owner Myles R. Hopkins, through their mutual friendship with Sinn Féin founder, Sean T. O’Kelly (1882 – 1966). Hopkins was one a number of friends who acted as financial backers for Sinn Féin’s weekly newspaper.

By Friday April 29, only the roofline scars of Hopkins and Hopkins’ building remained following shelling of the area by Royal Navy ship the Helga and machine gun fire on O’Connell Street. However, thanks to compensation funds from the Property Losses (Ireland) Commission, the ‘Famous Jewellers’ was reported to be open again for business ‘in temporary premises at the old well-known spot’ by September 1916. An advertisement, carried in the Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook published by the Irish Times in May 1917, announced that Hopkins and Hopkins were the original agents for the ‘Perfected American Waltham Watches - “the Best Timekeepers in the world” ‘.