We’re back among Irish Travel’s Movers and Shakers which is why our TravelMedia host Michael has seen fit to shell out on Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel again.
The historic hotel which fronts onto St Stephen’s Green.
And is guarded by a top-hatted and suited doorman.
And at times in its storied life too by an armed battalion when those revolting locals set up a trench in the park.
With British soldiers taking up positions on the rooftops to protect their guests.
Probably not what the Great and Good had in mind for their Easter weekend treat in 1916.
But an extra offering all the same… a chance to be there for the birthrights of what would become a new republic.
Nelson disarmed
The proclamation of independence, for all of us who know the chronology of those days, was of course declared at the GPO on Sackville Street.
Rechristened since as O’Connell Street.
And adorned with its own heroes, all of which spelt dust for poor old Admiral Nelson…
Toora loora loora loora loo!
Which was how trad legends The Dubliners immortalised the blowing up of his statue in song.
The bearded balladeers having formed their band.
Around the corner in O’Donoghue’s, off Grafton Street, on Merrion Row.
Grafting on Grafton Street
Grafton Street hums to the sound of buskers to this day.
Bono has been known to turn up unannounced while Phil Lynott stands sentry outside the Bruxelles bar on Harry Street.
Where it is compulsory to take visitors for a picture and leave a guitar plectrum for the Great Man.
The hen party I’d unwittingly spent the morning with at Edinburgh Airport.
As we’d sat through four gate changes and a three-hour delay are headed for Temple Bar.
But that’s for the tourist beer parties in search of Paddywhackery.
And willing to pay double for the privilege…
Real Dublin swarms around the pedestrianised shopping hub which connects Merrion Square and Stephen’s Green.
Famine and Feast
Merrion Square boasting the statue of Oscar Wilde reclining with inscriptions of his works alongside.
And Thomas Wolfe Stone, early insurrectionist and Constance Markiewicz, soldier of the Rising and the first female elected MP to the House of Commons.
Her sentence of execution was commuted to imprisonment.
Before she benefited from the amnesty of prisoners released after the Irish War of Independence.
There are ghosts in this here place.
The most poignant of all the million Irish mothers, fathers, children and grandchildren who died in the Potato Famine of the mid-18th century.
Whose loss is forever remembered in stone in Stephen’s Green, opposite the Shelbourne.
There is too a photographic and artistic exhibition to the Famine.
On the top floor of the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre.
Two Michael Collins
But that will be for my next visit ‘home’… time presses.
Do I feel guilty that I will be feeding on the best meats and sweet treats and fine wines.
Across from a statue to one million dead?
Where the British military had holidayed that weekend.
I console myself that it was here in the Shelbourne, in Room 112.
That a committee chaired by Michael Collins, drafted the Irish Constitution.
To ensure that the sacrifices of those like Easter Rising martyr James Connolly, like me an Irish-Scot, Ireland were not in vain.
We are in good hands, brought together again like so often, by the inimitable Michael Collins, descendant of that Michael Collins.
For a reunion with our American friends and more of that later.
And great statesman of our Irish Travel industry.
Who thinks only the best of us too and will always shell out on Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel.
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