THE “best” hotel in Dublin city centre loved by celebrities has a very spooky secret.
The Shelbourne Hotel, located across from St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, is a leading five-star retreat.
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And it is said to have been haunted by the spirit of a little girl.
In 1965, when the British medium Sybil Lee stayed in room 526 of the luxurious hotel, she heard a noise that sounded like a little girl crying.
Sybil decided to respond to the noise, asking: “What is the matter?”
And the little girl replied: “I’m frightened.”
When the British medium invited the child to enter her room, she could not see anyone.
The following morning, after waking up, she felt her right arm numb.
Sybil alleged that she spoke to the little girl the following evening, who told her she was a seven-year-old girl named Mary Masters.
The noted ghost hunter Hans Holzer discovered that the little girl seemed ill and used to live in one of the houses on which the hotel was built.
He also concluded that the little girl died in 1846 from cholera.
And decades later, the Shelbourne Hotel hit the headlines in the US after the Hollywood actress Lily Collins shared in a TV interview with Jimmy Fallon that she believed to be haunted by the same spectre Sybil once spoke to back in 1965.
Two years later, management at the 5-star hotel also admitted that on a number of occasions, terrified guests ran out of that same room screaming in panic.
Some of these claims were reported in an RTÉ documentary series, which found that, over a six-month period, between two and three hotel guests a week reported paranormal activity such as bath taps and showers turning on by themselves.
A former supervisor at the Shelbourne, Patrick Nash, told the programme at the time: “There was a young child, her name was Mary Masters, and she died of cholera in the hotel.
“Ever since then, countless people have seen ghosts or experienced something that they can’t explain.
“There was one time here, maybe for a period of about six months, that it would be like two or three times a week in this one specific room that everyone in it would phone down and say that the taps had turned on, the bath was filling and the shower had come on.
“People would be running and screaming out of the room.”
The Shelbourne was the hotel of choice for an illustrious band of luminaries from stage and screen during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Since 1824, the hotel has captivated visitors worldwide, from Charlie Chaplin to Elizabeth Taylor.
It has 265 en-suite bedrooms, all finished with luxurious soft furnishings and stylish furniture.
There is also a vast range of leisure facilities such as a gym, spa, and business centre.
The Shelbourne Hotel has been voted the number one hotel in the Readers’ Choice Awards.
It was founded in 1824 by Martin Burke, who first conceived the notion of establishing a lavish and sophisticated hotel in Dublin’s premier locale.
