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HOWTH County Dublin

Known of old as ‘Finn MacCoul’s Quoits’, this monstrous dolmen stands in the leafy environs of Howth castle, 1 mile south-west of the town. Beranger called it ‘one of the grandest mausoleums’, and while it certainly does impress one by its sheer size – the 70-ton, 17 by 12 feet capstone ranks second heaviest in the country – it has collapsed at the back, a state which prompted much debate in the nineteenth century as to whether it should be classed as an ‘earthfast’ dolmen, one whose capstone had always been in contact with the ground (the same case was also hotly argued for Woodtown, or Mount Venus, dolmen in the same county).The chamber is rather larger than in most portal tombs, extending to perhaps 12 feet in length, but its actual proportions are unclear.

Quite a number of megaliths are romantically linked with misty figures of prehistory. The Cromlech at Howth is the title of a long narrative poem by Sir Samuel Ferguson, who identified it as the tomb of the legendary heroine, Aideen:

They heaved the stone, they heaped the cairn
Said Ossian, “In a queenly grave
We leave her, ’mong her fields of fern,
Between the cliff and wave”.

Other Ancient Stones in County Dublin:
Brenanstown | Kiltiernan | Woodtown

Click here to buy the Appletree Press book from Amazon.co.uk. For more information click on: Ireland's Ancient Stones - A Megalithic Heritage by Kenneth McNally, published by Appletree Press.

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