I had occasion recently to visit a friend recovering from an illness in the Portobello House, which overlooks Portobello Bridge, and in the course of our conversation she recalled occasions in the past when she used to be in the same building.
That would have been about thirty-eight years ago, and at that time the building was a hotel, although almost empty and past its heyday as one of the city's most prosperous establishments. She was then a member of a club that used to meet once a week in one of the rooms for dancing.
Years before the railways had been built, when travellers from the South of Ireland came up to Dublin by water, the Portobello Hotel constituted a famous and welcome landmark at journey's end.
The Irish Times, March 17th, 1931