Mount Venus
Mount Venus is a megalithic site in Edmondstown, County Dublin, found beside the Mount Venus Road. It is a huge, collapsed dolmen.
There is to be seen a massive cap stone weighing in at 44 tons. It is partly collapsed on its supports and overgrown, and it has been suggested that this was a result of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, as well as the 1690 Caernarfon earthquake.[1] The capstone lies against a single large upright megalith.
When it was complete, the monument would have been a 15-foot high chamber entrance. Only one of the two great portal stones survives upright. The capstone has fallen and leans on this portal stone. The other portal stone (15 feet long) lies next to the monument. A third dressed stone 13 feet long by three feet wide lies in front.[2]
The site has been described by William Copeland Borlase as one of the most magnificent in the world. He believed this to be a distinct class of tomb - an earth-fast dolmen, so-called from the capstone's contact with the ground at the back (another example being Howth dolmen).
Mount Venus has been declared a national heritage site. Access to this megalith is through a gap in a hedge, on a site which was once a golf course.
Location
- Location map: 53°15’38"N, 6°18’39"W
Outside links
References
- ↑ The Irish Times 25 June 1960, page 8
- ↑ The Modern Antiquarian