The Strangelove Suite: Northern Ireland sells nuclear bunker

Peter Morrison / AP

The entrance to the nuclear bunker that was built by the during the cold war in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016.

Associated Press

Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016 | 8:27 a.m.

BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland — It has no windows — but offers unrestricted views of Armageddon.

Northern Ireland is selling its Cold War-era nuclear bunker, an underground installation with room for 235 beds that sellers imagine could be transformed into a tourist attraction or blast-proof storage facility.

Journalists took a tour Thursday of one of Northern Ireland's strangest real estate offering. For 575,000 pounds ($850,000), the successful buyer could acquire a 46,363-square-foot (4,300-square-meter) grass-topped building discretely situated on 3.74 acres (1.51 hectares) of rolling grassland northwest of Belfast.

Northern Ireland's leaders have decided they can survive without the bunker, which was built in the 1980s to protect key government and legal figures from a Russian nuclear strike. The facility includes a conference room and broadcasting suite. Its existence was a state secret until 2007.