Grand Canal Dock, Dublin

Grand Canal Dock is the waterside urban area gathered around an enclosed harbour, where the Grand Canal meets the River Liffey. Its present character comes from a striking reversal: the docks opened in 1796, designed by William Jessop, and were once the world’s largest docks, but by the 1960s they were almost entirely derelict. Coal stores, chemical works, tar pits, bottle factories and iron foundries had filled this working landscape, while bakers and millers continued along the inner basin.

The transformation began in 1998 on the former gasworks land beside Hanover Quay. Cleaning it took from 2002 to 2006 and involved an underground wall about 8 metres deep, with polluted soil removed under environmental supervision. After that, the docklands became a major base for international technology companies.

Google moved into Gordon House in 2004, and its arrival helped draw firms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Airbnb. By 2015, technology companies employed about 7,000 people here. As you walk beside the harbour, the water connects all these chapters: canal engineering, heavy industry, contamination and an office district known by the nickname Silicon Docks. The area’s redevelopment has also brought debate about gentrification, so this basin remains both a working piece of Dublin’s history and a sharply modern business quarter.