"I propose being at the Shelbourne 'till the 18th", wrote the dowager Lady Bellew to Hugh Lane in early December 1902, "and I have asked dear Lady Beatrice Moore to stop with me during that time, so hope to see a good deal of you during the week".

Almost a century later it is unlikely that either the dowager, a woman of strong opinions, or indeed her friend Lady Beatrice, would choose to stay at Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel, since this establishment is now part of an international chain, with all the dreary dependence on conformity that this inevitably brings.

Chains of any kind, be they of shops, hotels or even metal, depend for their success on each unit being identical to the others. Individuality is discouraged because it risks weakening the strength of the whole.

News of an impending namechange for the hotel should therefore come as no great surprise. The Shelbourne is part of the Meridien chain, itself part of a still-larger company, the Forte Hotel Group, which, in turn, is owned by the multinational business Gran ada:Compass.

In other words, this Dublin institution is just a tiny element in a very large enterprise. The Forte Hotel Group's website makes for fascinating - and highly instructive - reading, since it carries information that the vision of this organisation is to be not just the best but also "the most profitable operator in every market in which it chooses to operate".

One means of achieving this profit-driven ambition is to initiate what the Forte company profile describes as "a strong brand structure", that is to say a clear corporate image which can be identified in all the group's hotels. And an obvious area for the presence of a "strong brand structure" is the name of the hotel itself.

How much simpler to have all the different premises around the world bearing the same title, rather than confusing your customers with local differences. So, when the Meridien group trumpets recent additions to its chain, the names it has given them are all the same; newly opened hotels include Le Meridien Sydney in Australia, Le Meridien Pune in India and Le Meridien Los Monteros in Spain.

While each hotel in the group seemingly "has its own character", all are "united by Meridien's characteristic relaxed elegance", as well as "sophisticated European style with a French twist". Presumably these are the features which now also mark the Shelbourne Hotel - or Le Meridien Dublin, as it may yet become.

In fact, the Shelbourne's name changed some time ago without any public outcry. In December 1996 the hotel became officially known as the Shelbourne Meridien. Dropping the word "Shelbourne" would be nothing more than a piece of linguistic streamlining. This is unlikely to meet with approval from traditionalists who will dwell on the hotel's long and distinguished pedigree.

It was, after all, the institution's past which was evoked by one correspondent to this newspaper earlier in the week when he denounced the present owners for "lacking a historical sense". Perhaps, therefore, a brief examination of the Shelbourne's own history might be helpful.

The hotel was founded in 1824 on the site of Kerry House - leased, as historians will know, to the British army during the uprisings of 1798. The present main building was constructed in 1867 by its new owners, William Jury and Charles Cotton, to the designs of a fashionable architect of the period, John McCurdy.

It remained in Irish ownership for the best part of a century, during which many distinguished guests, not least the dowager Lady Bellew, stayed there. It was also the venue for the drafting of the Irish Free State constitution in 1922.

More than 30 years ago, however, the hotel was sold to an English chain, Trusthouse Forte, without a murmur of regret from anyone in this country. Trusthouse Forte, lest it be forgotten, also owned another hotel in Dublin, the Royal Hibernian, which was both older and in many respects more distinguished than the Shelbourne but was closed down in 1983 and demolished to make way for a singularly uninspiring office building.

Again, few enough complaints were made at the time about this act of spoliation. In 1994 the Forte group expanded by buying the Meridien chain from Air France, but two years later was itself purchased by Granada, which is how the Shelbourne came into the hands of its present owners.

At the time of these corporate manoeuvres, no concern was expressed for the future of the hotel. The head of Granada, by the way, is Gerry Robinson, a man who has always proclaimed great devotion to his Irish origins and makes a point of spending several days every week in Donegal.

Granada: Compass is a very large global conglomerate. Its hotel wing alone contains 440 properties in 50 countries. Such organisations - as the workforces of many Irish companies which have been bought by overseas businesses have discovered and as shareholders of Eircom are liable to soon find out - are understandably more concerned with the efficient and profitable running of their entire corporations than with local sensibilities. And, it must be observed, in Dublin those sensibilities seem to be extremely selective in their application.

Where, after all, was Dublin's sense of history when the Shelbourne Hotel was originally sold to an overseas company? Where was the local sense of history when some 60 houses on St Stephen's Green, many architecturally and historically distinguished, were demolished between 1965 and 1985?

What awareness of historical pedigree saved the Royal Hibernian Hotel, the interior of the Kildare Street Club, the houses of Hume Street, to mention only a handful of properties in the immediate vicinity of the Shelbourne Hotel?

When an institution is sold, the new owners are entitled to do whatever they wish with their purchase, including change its name. It is absurd to expect the Granada:Compass group to have "a historical sense" when the local population does not. Lamenting the loss of the Shelbourne's old title is little more than a piece of self-indulgent and misplaced sentimentality.