Something shifted when the taxi dropped me off at Dublin’s Shelbourne hotel. As I glided through the revolving door of the 198-year-old brick building on St. Stephen’s Green, I was enveloped in the warmth of old-school grandeur. Its façade is landmarked by the Irish Georgian Society, but the Shelbourne is protecting more than just architecture—it is preserving an important part of European history.
Within minutes, I was asking the concierge, Alan Grange, for stories about the 1916 Easter Rising, which paved the way to Irish independence from the British Crown. Royal troops were garrisoned in the hotel, and Republican rebels fired at their imperial overlords from inside the park, which was bursting with spring foliage.
