Slane Castle - County Meath, Ireland (1984)

It was as likely a place as any to start a sonic revolution. In 1690, William of Orange defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne, near the present-day site of Slane Castle in County Meath. It was a crucial moment in Irish history. William’s victory confirmed Protestant supremacy in Ireland and gave rise to the sectarian violence that continues to this day. It was probably no accident, then, that U2 decamped in May, 1984 to Slane Castle, 30 miles outside Dublin, to record its fourth studio album The Unforgettable Fire. But the four young Irish lads who lamented the violence of Sunday, Bloody Sunday were not about to choose sectarian sides. They had a much higher revolutionary purpose in mind. They wanted to change the world in the name of love, and they wanted to change the world through rock ’n’ roll.

Produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois—the team that would go on to mastermind U2’s classic albums The Joshua Tree and Achtung, Baby—The Unforgettable Fire is a departure in nearly every way from what came before. Inspired by their airy surroundings and the openness of the ancient recording studio, the straightforward rock of the first three U2 albums is here replaced by the patented Eno/Lanois ambient wash, and with songs such as the title track and “Bad” the band achieves an ethereal majesty, still rooted in the world of rock ’n’ roll, but soaring off to previously unexplored heights.

“The Unforgettable Fire was a beautifully out-of-focus record, blurred like an impressionist painting,” Bono told Rolling Stone in 1987. “People thought we were the future of rock ’n’ roll and they went, ‘what are you doin’ with this doggone hippie Eno album?’ But we owe Eno and Lanois so much for seeing through to the heart of U2.”

That heart, always profoundly Irish and profoundly universal, found its truest expression inside the walls of Slane Castle.

To read about other classic sessions and the studios that shaped them, take a look at our feature, Just For the Record.