DID you know you can have your roots done at Dublin’s five-star Shelbourne Hotel? We’re not talking about your hair here, – although the hotel is more than capable of organising a shampoo and set. The hotel boasts its own unique butler in charge of researching guests’ genealogy, if they wish it
When guests book in ahead, they are offered the services of the genealogy butler and an assessment form. You provide basic information about your ancestors, giving their names, approximate years of birth, parents’ names and counties of birth, where possible. The butler then compiles assessment reports, which are presented to the guests on arrival.
Apparently, the butler – her name’s Helen by the way – can often obtain a vital document relating to an ancestor. And the sight of a faded piece of paper confirming a guest’s Irish roots has been known to reduce some to tears.
It’s all part of the service at this Dublin institution overlooking the city’s St Stephen’s Green – like having your bed turned down by a maid at night, or your shoes shined, or chocolates and fruit in your room.
Rightly ranking among the world’s greatest of hotels, The Shelbourne has been going the extra mile for its distinguished guests since it first opened its doors in 1824. In that year Tipperaryman Martin Burke set up in business after acquiring three adjoining town houses that overlook the famous garden square, the largest in the whole of Europe. The hotel has been at the forefront of Irish cultural and political life ever since.
During Ireland’s Civil War, The Shelbourne was home to the new Irish Army and from February to May 1922, its old walls witnessed the drafting of the Constitution. Bunreacht na hÉireann was drawn up in Room 112, under the chairmanship of Michael Collins. The room is now referred to as The Constitution Room. Count John McCormack, Seán Ó Riada, Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan, Seamus Heaney – they’ve all stayed here as have President Kennedy and his wife Jackie, Maureen O’Hara, James Cagney, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Rock Hudson, Burl Ives, Orson Wells and Rita Hayworth.
The Shelbourne closed in 2005 for a re-furbishment costing squillions of euros. It opened afresh two years later with its five-star status, now aptly named as a Renaissance Hotel. The new Shelbourne has 265 bedrooms across eight floors, a restaurant called the Saddle Room and two bars, the famous Horseshoe Bar and No 27 Bar and Lounge, taking the place of the old Side Door restaurant, and intended to attract Dublin’s wealthy but younger set. And, of course, service is 24 hours.
The refurbished hotel now also contain the Lords Mayor’s Lounge, a great place to people watch over Afternoon Tea, 11 conference rooms and a ballroom. There are 19 suites, 11 of which are named after famous guests associated with the hotel’s past. The old gym has been transformed into a health spa and the hotel contains a business centre and executive lounge.
The hotel’s trademark window boxes have been kept, as have the long curtains and thick carpets, along with some of the furniture and antiques collected over the past 180 years. It all makes The Shelbourne appear even more opulent for its well-heeled guests. Silk-covered walls are home to a true treasure trove of Irish art, including in the lobby a large work by Louis le Brocquy, the leading Irish artist of the current century. Besides this, there are works depicting the characters in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” by Barrie Cooke and Cian McLoughlin. In fact, the whole of The Shelbourne is something of work of art between marble floors and sparkling chandeliers.
British author Jeffrey Archer likes to boast that you’ll find the loo at his London penthouse first on the right after the Picasso. For information, the loos at The Shelbourne are downstairs first left after the le Brocquy.
No 27 Bar includes works by Belfast artist Victor Richardson of views around the Green while the renowned Horseshoe Bar remains right at the hub of Dublin’s pub culture, a meeting point for politicians and journalists, sportsmen and movie stars; a place for lively conversation and banter beneath some original Hogarth prints.
The Shelbourne with its modern day face on is the epitome of class, reflecting as it does the past and embracing the future. The grandeur of the setting is more than matched by the high levels of service at the disposal of its guests.
In the words of the renowned 19th century writer Elizabeth Bowen: “The place seems to be thronged with the handsome, the hearty, the happy and the polite”.
Frank Murphy was a guest at The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin.
* For more information, contact The Shelbourne Hotel, 27 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. Tel: 00 353 (0)1 663 4500, or go to: http://www.theshelbourne.ie.
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