diff --git a/datalad_ria/patches/sshremoteio.py b/datalad_ria/patches/sshremoteio.py
index 0f235f3f..0be12781 100644
--- a/datalad_ria/patches/sshremoteio.py
+++ b/datalad_ria/patches/sshremoteio.py
@@ -182,9 +182,22 @@ def _strip_endmarker_newline(lines):
     return "".join(lines)
 
 
+# The method 'SSHRemoteIO_run' is a patched version of
+# 'datalad/distributed/ora-remote.py:SSHRemoteIO._run'
+# from datalad@58b8e06317fe1a03290aed80526bff1e2d5b7797
+def SSHRemoteIO_remove_dir(self, path):
+    with self.ensure_writeable(path.parent):
+        self._run('rmdir {}'.format(sh_quote(str(path))),
+                  # THIS IS THE PATCH
+                  # we want it to fail, like rmdir() would fail
+                  # on non-empty dirs
+                  check=True)
+
+
 for target, patch in (
         ('__init__', SSHRemoteIO__init__),
         ('_append_end_markers', SSHRemoteIO_append_end_markers),
         ('_run', SSHRemoteIO_run),
+        ('remove_dir', SSHRemoteIO_remove_dir),
 ):
     apply_patch('datalad.distributed.ora_remote', 'SSHRemoteIO', target, patch)
diff --git a/datalad_ria/tests/test_ssh_remote_io.py b/datalad_ria/tests/test_ssh_remote_io.py
index b87fc3a6..d86af4fa 100644
--- a/datalad_ria/tests/test_ssh_remote_io.py
+++ b/datalad_ria/tests/test_ssh_remote_io.py
@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
 from pathlib import PurePosixPath
 import pytest
 
-from datalad.distributed.ora_remote import SSHRemoteIO
+from datalad.distributed.ora_remote import (
+    RemoteCommandFailedError,
+    SSHRemoteIO,
+)
 
 
 @pytest.fixture(autouse=False, scope="function")
@@ -65,8 +68,8 @@ def test_SSHRemoteIO_handledir(ssh_remoteio, ria_sshserver_setup):
     ssh_remoteio.write_file(targetfpath, 'dummy')
     assert ssh_remoteio.exists(targetfpath)
 
-    # XXX calling remove_dir()has no effect, and causes no error!!!
-    ssh_remoteio.remove_dir(targetdir)
+    with pytest.raises(RemoteCommandFailedError):
+        ssh_remoteio.remove_dir(targetdir)
     assert ssh_remoteio.exists(targetdir)
 
     # we must "know" that there is content and remove it