View from Boland’s Mill

Bolands Mill is a place of historical significance in Ireland. By that I mean that I first heard about it in a history class in school, and I basically know nothing else about it. As I understand it, it was one of the key locations during the 1916 rising which ultimately resulted in Irish independence from the United Kingdom.

Much more significantly for me, it was the giant ugly concrete building across the road from my apartment when I lived in Dublin. It’s on the corner of Ringsend Road and Barrow Street, about a block away from Google’s Dublin office. I used to look at it during my (extremely brief) walk home from work, and I always thought it looked like an ideal model for a level in a first-person shooter. It’s full of huge ladders, narrow walkways and tiny slit windows. I can easily imagine playing Counter Strike in it.

The mill has been closed for years, so there was never any chance that I’d make it inside to have a peek around. Fortunately for me, my cousin Conor Coghlan managed to (perfectly legally and legitimately, I’m sure) get a bit of a look around recently. He posted this video of the inside of the facility, and the view from the top:

Bolands Mill from Conor Coghlan on Vimeo.