Google Dublin

We left the 1700s of the Old Library (and the 800s of the Book of Kells) and walked to the Silicon Docks, aka the Docklands.

We passed what was Boland's Mill (located on the Grand Canal). According to Wikipedia, "There are two six-storey stone warehouse buildings dating from the 1830s, and others on Barrow Street dating from the 1870s." Several of the old buildings are being renovated (that's a Google building in the background):

The old buildings are being renovated as part of a project called "Bolands Quay" (no apostrophe) and was purchased by Google in 2018 for €300 million. The project also includes these new buildings, still under construction. They will be the workplace of something like 3,000 Google employees:

Google already has seven or eight buildings in the area and about 8,000 existing employees (this is their EU headquarters)--representing something like 60 countries. Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb, and other big tech companies also have presences in the Silicon Docks. Of course, all this construction has raised fears of "San Francisco-fication" and Dublin's housing prices are reflecting the changes to the area.

We went to Google's Gordon House, which is its reception building:

A closeup:

The waiting area in the lobby:

The roof has panoramic views of Dublin, from the Wicklow Mountains to Dublin Bay. Here is an angle that shows what was the Gasometer building (and is now The Alliance, an upscale apartment building), with the Aviva Stadium in the background:

Here we are with Matt's colleagues, Wanja (pronounced "Vanya," from Germany) and Lilly (from Greece):