Last night was one of those rare evenings where the past and present collide perfectly, a mix of music, LEGO, and memory.
After catching my cousin Derek Mullen’s gig in The Quays, Dublin, (he is red haired Irish folk singer and guitarist who plays 4 days a week in there), the plan was simple enough: swing by Ratoath for a quick pickup. What I didn’t expect was to be loading 75 kilograms of jaw-dropping LEGO, thousands upon thousands of bricks and nearly 400 mini-figures from the golden years of the 1990s and 2000s.
The kind of haul that makes your inner AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) stop and stare.
Each box told a story, classic LEGO City, Ninjago, Adventurers, Star Wars, and even early Technic and Bionicle pieces mixed together in a riot of nostalgia. Sets that would have once filled Smyth’s shelves and Christmas wish lists are now finding their way home to Redmond’s Forge, ready to be sorted, catalogued, and displayed as part of the museum’s growing archive.
From Arklow Floors to LEGO Scores
Yesterday afternoon, before the road trip even began, I was down in Arklow at Redmond’s Forge, insulating windows and laying more floorboards in the museum. There’s something deeply satisfying about that kind of work, the smell of cut wood, the rhythm of the hammer, the quiet transformation of an empty space into something with warmth and purpose.
Each plank that goes down feels like another step closer to opening day, a foundation not just for the displays and tables that will follow, but for the whole story this place represents.
It’s hard work, sure, but it’s the good kind, the fun kind. The kind that makes you stand back and think, this is becoming something real.
And little did I know, that same evening I’d be standing in another house, twenty years and eighty-two kilometres away, surrounded by the same kind of floorboards I’d laid all those years ago.
The Road to Kilmeague
After packing the X-Trail to its brim with the Ratoath LEGO haul, we set off west through the Meath & Kildare night. My destination wasn’t just a drop-off point, it was a return to my own story.
Kilmeague, a village in County Kildare, the house where I lived from 2001 to 2006. And now, fittingly, where Derek lives today.
As I walked through the door, it was like stepping back two decades. The wooden floors I laid with my dad in 2002 are still there, every board holding a memory. The kitchen tiles I put down, the downstairs toilet I installed, the fence I made in the garden, and the floorboards upstairs I sanded and varnish, all still bearing the marks of long weekends with sandpaper, varnish, and stubborn brushes.
Even the bathroom brought back flashes of a younger me turning the cast iron bath around, adding a shower, tiling it by hand, and proudly standing back after knocking out the window to make way for double patio doors in the dining room. I even bricked up the old back door for that new L-shaped kitchen, which my cousin Eamonn O’Shea fitted for me, over 20 years ago this year.
The Past Lives On
Some things haven’t changed. The childhood bunk beds that my brother Mark and I shared are still in the spare room. The sitting room light and coving I installed are still holding strong, proof that a good bit of DIY lasts longer than you’d ever imagine.
And up on the wall of memory, a reminder of how far things have come, the same space where I uploaded my very first YouTube video, 19 years ago:
🎥 Light’s in Kilmeague (2006) and its 48 views, and some of them were me this morning.
It’s surreal to think that what started with my 2001 house, a few LEGO sets, and a shaky video camera has evolved into Redmond’s Forge, a living, breathing museum of LEGO history, creativity, and family connection.
Full Circle
Driving home from Kilmeague after 10pm last night, the X-Trail full of LEGO and my head full of memories, it struck me how intertwined these worlds are, building, collecting, creating, and remembering.
Every floorboard I laid, every wall I built, every LEGO set I restore, they’re all part of the same story: building something meaningful, one brick (or board) at a time. What I had learned from my Dad to pass on to my next generation in Luke and Rose.
Here’s to family, to music, to craftsmanship, and to 75 kilograms of pure LEGO nostalgia that’s soon to join the shelves at Redmond’s Forge Museum in Arklow.