Inside Boland’s Mill

For those who are unfamiliar with this building; Boland’s Mill is an old flour mill in the Grand Canal Dock area of Dublin.
It’s a building that much of Dublin have a sort of affinity with. The Mill is seen by many as a significant piece of the city’s past, and they feel that because of it’s social and historical importance it should be protected. It opened in the 1940’s and after 70 years it still dominates the skyline around Dublin’s Docklands. The archaic building is now even more striking since it became surrounded by the shiny glass boom-time towers synonymous with this part of the city — a little bit like a scruffy uncle at a wedding, the adults smirk but all the kids want to hang out with him.

For those like myself, who have only ever known the Mill as abandoned and off limits (to everybody except to the occasional graf artist) it’s a common enough daydream to wonder about what’s going on inside… So I got pretty excited when I came across the FlickR set above by a photographer, Sebastian Dooris, who had done just that.

The Mill was doomed to becoming an block of fancy apartments a few years back — one thing the city doesn’t need more of, but a lot has changed since then, so lets hope the developers get struck with a sense of civic duty and see the opportunity to create something great for the city.