Windmill Lane Recording Studio was located just off Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin Docklands. It opened in 1978 and was originally used for the recording of Traditional Irish music. In 1980 the first rock album was recorded at the Studio which opened the flood gates and insured a string of well known world wide musicians and bands would come to use these facilities. This Album was the debut album by Irish rock band U2“Boy”
Windmill Lane became U2 s base for a couple of years before they moved to a building further down the Quay .The studio itself moved to a new location in Ringsend in 1988 and the facility continued as a post production facility until it was sold in 2015.
From the mid 80s up until the Buildings were demolished in 2015 the studio exteriors were covered with graffiti written by fans who had traveled from all over the world to pay homage to there idols.
Although the building was demolished on 3rd of April 2015 to make way for a Apartment / Office complex -the developers did decide to retain a 20 – metre stretch of the graffiti studio wall to be included in the new development. There was also sections of the remaining wall sold off with monies raised going to charities.
In 1988 a year after the release of “The Joshua tree” which was partly recorded at Windmill Lane i was working on a project to photograph the changing Dublin Docklands. I shot a selection of images of the wall using a 35mm camera and some 35mm b+w Kodak Panatomic X fine grain film – I have chosen as selection for this blog .
osheaphotography 