"In 1951, ... wrote a history of the Shelbourne Hotel, which she describes as 'overhanging the ornamental landscape of trees, grass, water' of the Green, 'tall as a cliff, but more genial'. Largely dismissed by critics at the time, and ever since, The Shelbourne is much more than a history of the hotel, although it is that; it is really a history of Dublin seen through Bowen's well-polished lens. As Irish history flows around it, the Shelbourne Hotel becomes for Bowen a kind of still point, a splendid bow window through which the flux of time can be observed. While teaspoons clatter politely on fine bone china, outside there is the , the rise of nationalist politics, and the , when more than 200 members of the Irish Citizen Army, among them , took over St. Stephen's Green. The hotel's initial response to the insurrection — transferring tea to the Writing Room at the rear of the building so as to take guests out of the direct line of gunfire — 'was met with disfavour'."