| The Gresham Hotel | |
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| Address | 23 Upper O'Connell Street Dublin 1 |
| Hotel chain | Gresham Hotels |
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| Opening date | 1817 |
| Rooms | 288 |
| Website | gresham-hotels-dublin.com |
The Gresham Hotel is a four-star hotel on O'Connell Street in Dublin, Ireland. It is a Dublin institution and landmark building which was refurbished in the early 2000s.
Hotel founder, Thomas Gresham, was a foundling child, abandoned on the steps of the Royal Exchange, London. He was named after the founder of that institution Sir Thomas Gresham a famous merchant-politician in the Elizabethan era.
Gresham came to Ireland, and as a very young man obtained employment in the service of William Beauman of Rutland Square (now Parnell Square), Dublin. After some time, and while still comparatively young, he became butler to this family. This was an important position in the Georgian household, with its complicated domestic structure.
In 1817, Gresham left Beauman's household and purchased 21-22 Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street). How he acquired the capital to undertake an enterprise of this kind is unknown. Over the next 48 years, he operated the hotel as a first class lodging house catering mostly to the wealthy aristocracy and MPs who passed through Dublin on their way to London.
The hotel was badly damaged during the Irish Civil War, but rebuilt during the 1920s to a high specification.[1] Many of the original features from this time remain including stunning Waterford crystal chandeliers. The hotel became part of the Ryan Hotel group in 1978. At the turn of the 21st century, the group decided to sell some of its properties in order to invest further in existing capital. Then Ryan Group was bought by independent owners in 2004 and became a private company, The Gresham Hotel Group. From 2006, the group began major refurbishment and investment in the existing properties in Dublin, Cork, London, Brussels and Hamburg.
Now, the hotel has 288 bedrooms including seven suites, three of which have penthouse balconies with views of the city and the Dublin Mountains. The suites are named after famous people who have stayed in the hotel over the years.