KILTIERNAN County Dublin

Beranger often introduced human figures into his watercolours to convey a sense of scale, and here he shows two surveyors at work, dwarfed by the huge capstone they are engaged in measuring. The person supervising this activity is in all probability Beranger, who sometimes included himself in his compositions.

The picture may have been the inspiration for Borlase’s description of this monument as ‘a sphinx-like monster, advancing out of a rocky hill on some half dozen short and rickety legs’. It is situated among boulder-strewn fields 1 mile south-south-east of Stepaside, which is about 7 miles south-east of Dublin. Permission to visit the site may be refused due to a recent dispute over public access.

The plan of the chamber is confused, but measures some 15 feet in length, unusually large for a portal tomb, and it may have been built thus to accommodate the length of the capstone, which at 22 feet is among the largest of its kind. It is possible that this massive stone was already at hand for the builders to make use of: a rocky ledge rising behind the tomb is a likely place from which it could have been levered into position on top of the supporting uprights which over time have been pushed askew by its unrelenting weight, estimated at 40 tons. Remedial work to stabilise the structure in 1956 recovered several artifacts from the chamber including coarse decorated pottery. Kiltiernan probably belongs, like its fellow dolmens in the district, to the late Neolithic period, 2500-2000 BC.

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