Two stacks Dublin couldn’t part with
Nobody calls the Poolbeg Chimneys beautiful. They are exhaust stacks for a power station, they stopped working in 2010, and you can’t get near them. Yet when the ESB floated demolishing them in 2014 there was enough public outcry that the company backed down – the stacks stay. That is the real story here: a pair of disused industrial chimneys that Dubliners decided were part of the city. Coming home by sea or air, they are often the first thing you see.
At just over 207 metres – 207.48 m for Number 1, 207.8 m for its slightly taller twin – they are the tallest structures in Ireland, and the red-and-white banding was painted on for the benefit of aircraft and ships, not tourists. The first was completed in 1969, the second in 1977, for the modern Poolbeg station that locals still call the Pigeon House after the original works that generated electricity here from 1903.
Seeing them: the Great South Wall
If you only do one thing, walk the Great South Wall out to Poolbeg Lighthouse. From the car park off Pigeon House Road it’s about 4 km one way on a flat, straight promenade, with the bay on both sides and the stacks looming behind you – one of the walks Dubliners reach for first when asked what living here feels like. For the chimneys themselves, the best angles are from the northern end of Sandymount Strand and through Irishtown Nature Park, where they rise straight off the skyline.
One honest warning: the approach takes you past the harbour’s working edge, including the sewage treatment plant and recycling traffic, so it’s not all sea air. Push on – it clears once you’re out on the wall.
You can’t go up the chimneys, and the peninsula is a live ESB site (gas turbines still run here), so drones and stunts are out. Treat it as a viewing-and-walking trip, not an attraction with a door.
Getting there
- DART: Sandymount is the nearest station, then a walk to the strand and wall.
- Bus: routes 1, 15A and 15B serve Ringsend, the usual starting point.
- Car: free on-street parking off Pigeon House Road, which fills fast at weekends – come before midday.
There are public toilets and cafés back around Sandymount Strand; there is nothing out on the wall itself, so go prepared, and bring a layer – it’s exposed and the weather turns quickly.
In the culture
The chimneys turn up in U2’s 1984 video for Pride (In the Name of Love), and an early press shot of Elvis Costello has him posing with the twin towers behind him on a misty Dublin day. A 2024 ESB restoration – roughly 7,000 surface holes filled per tower, fresh paint and new steel caps on top of the ones added in 2015 – means they should stand a good while yet.
For the best light, come at sunrise for soft colour on the eastern faces, or near sunset from the South Wall pier when the stacks go to silhouette over the harbour.