Silicon Docks

Silicon Docks is a nickname for the area in Dublin, Ireland around Grand Canal Dock, stretching to the IFSC, city centre east, and city centre south near the Grand Canal. The nickname makes reference to Silicon Valley, and was adopted because of the concentration of European headquarters of high-tech companies such as Google,Facebook,Twitter,Linkedin and startups in the area. The number of tech professionals working in technology firms in the area is about 7,000.

In the wake of the dot-com bubble collapse from 1999-2001, IDA Ireland's director of operations in California, Dermot Tuohy, made moves to bring the at-the-time budding tech companies, PayPal, eBay, Overture (which would later become part of Yahoo!), and Google to Dublin. In 2002, Google executives agreed to investigate the possibility of opening operations in Dublin. They viewed the Digital Hub in the city centre west, which now houses 900 people and is the location for the European headquarters of companies such as Eventbrite and Etsy. Google’s property advisors at the time also alerted them to an alternative location at Grand Canal Dock, identifying the potential of a number of buildings on Barrow Street owned by developer Liam Carroll. Within walking distance from the city centre, the location was seen by the company as having the right mix of factors to attract the type of employee they wanted in Dublin. Google's California offices encouraged a college campus-style atmosphere, something achievable in the Grand Canal Dock location. The visitors decided that once the building, which was still under construction, was complete, they would rent 60,000sq ft of Gordon House on Barrow Street, which they moved into in 2004. It’s a choice still seen by those in the IDA as a seismic shift for investment in Dublin. The agency, and many others including senior Google employees, feel the decision was directly responsible for many other Silicon Valley names, such as Twitter and Facebook, choosing to set up shop nearby.

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