Images

Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The whole rigmarole – soon to be inundated, but regularly visited now, seemingly.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The underside of the capstone with the remaining upright to the left.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

Beranger’s watercolour from the information board in the DSPCA.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

A new angle for me, with 10-year-old LM for scale. “There’s no way I’m going in there,” said she.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

Possibly the most immense megalithic pressure point in Ireland.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The ivy-covered tree is a hawthorn and really detracts from this monument. It’s on private land adjacent to the DSPCA site, who use it in their publicity material, but don’t take responsibility for it. There is a legal trespass warning sign there now. There has been quite a lot of clearance work over the last while, but there is a general air of indifference and neglect about the place – shame really because this is an impressive structure.

Image credit: rayner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

Herself for scale again. The massive ‘capstone’ is held up by this stone alone. It must have a deep socket.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

Now is the time to visit this as pretty soon it will be very overgrown and the various fallen stones will be hidden. Very frustrating that this is not in state care and looked after every once in a while.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

I got a sense today that the chamber below the capstone literally exploded out from the immense weight bearing down on it. Could be nonsense of course.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by Rhiannon

No, this doesn’t really look like the site. But Mr O’Neill says of his drawing: “In the accompanying illustration I have ventured on representing the Mount Venus rock chamber, as I conceive it appeared when undisturbed, in order to give an idea of its gigantic character.”

In v2 of the journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society.
archive.org/stream/jstor-25489810/25489810#page/n8/mode/1up

Image credit: Henry O'Neill, 1851
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

First time seeing this stone cleared. Someone has been working here, clearing back some of the vegetation.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The monstrous capstone, variously said to weigh between 44 and 80 tons, held in position by the mighty upright at t’other end.

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The stone on the right is a possible collapsed upright

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The massive, prostrate stone at the ‘back’ of the tomb, with bag for scale

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

If you want to get an idea of the layout of this monument, now’s the time to go

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The capstone rests against the remaining upright, which is roughly 2 metres tall

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The bag on the capstone shows the scale of this beast

Image credit: ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

Another view of the capstone, with Roisin for scale

Image credit: Ryaner
Image of Mount Venus (Burial Chamber) by ryaner

The capstone lies against the one remaining upright

Image credit: ryaner

Articles

Mount Venus

Visited the neighbouring DSPCA today, 12/5/15 and couldn’t resist this. Seems that they may be realising what they have on their hands here as there was quite a bit of recent heavy shrub felling and the site is quite open. I don’t know if the DSPCA own the land that the mega-megalith is on, but they have marked it on the map on one of their hand-outs.

I always struggle to explain this place, and the scale of what may have once been a capstone (or may have been an over-ambitious and abandoned operation). The stone’s only rival for weight, as far as I know, is at Browne’s Hill in Carlow – much better known and valued.

This time I had my little companion with me and hope that today’s shots show some scale.

Mount Venus

I’ve been at Mount Venus twice before and both times have left feeling puzzled. The massive capstone lies against a single large upright and there has always been precious little else to see due to a riot of vegetation. Doubts persist in the literature as to whether the capstone was ever fully raised or if this was a project begun and then abandoned, a bridge too far so to speak.

I stopped by the tomb today to see if I could clear up some of this confusion for myself. I had hoped that the growth was not as bad as usual given the time of year. I was even optimistic that someone might have cleared around the tomb as the last time I was here somebody had cut the elder tree at the tomb’s north end. No such luck, but the new year’s growth was only just taking hold and I was able to get a much better view of the monument after a half hour’s toil. Brambles, hawthorn, nettles and holly; my unprotected hands are showing the signs.

One of the problems I have in describing this tomb is that I don’t know the front from the back, where the supposed portal was, was there ever a doorstone etc. I’ve always thought of the front of the tomb as being the sloping capstone, the east side/end. I’ll use that as a guide.

I had never seen the stone at the front of this image megalithomania.com/show/image/5326 before. I was able to uncover it today. It’s almost 4 metres long by a metre wide and looks to have been dressed. What it’s purpose was, what part of the structure it belonged to, is beyond me. At the south end of the tomb is a stone with similarities to the one that remains standing. Did this once prop up the south end? I didn’t get a good look at it as I had had my fill of bashing brambles back for today.

Right in the centre of the stones is a large hawthorn tree with a parasitic holly tree at its side. A modern pit has been dug around the tree and is filled with plastic and glass bottles. I wondered why this site doesn’t have an official fógra beside it. A little time and a chainsaw would expose more of the monument and aid us in knowing a little more about what went on here back in the neolithic. There is more to find out from a survey of the site. I was left feeling slightly less puzzled when I took my leave. I’ll be back... with a machete!

Mount Venus

2/8/06

Re-visited here at the height of the bracken season. After beating back some of the brambles and bracken, the enormity of the capstone is revealed. Somebody had been here about 2 months ago and kindly cut down the tree at the northern end of the tomb. This allows much better views of the stones.

Access was once again along the west side of the DCPCA grounds for about 60 metres, over the barbed wire and across the small field here, and then in through the slightly overgrown gap. The tomb is still hidden until you go through this gap and turn left.

Folklore

Mount Venus
Burial Chamber

Turning to the south side of Dublin, in the grounds of “Mount Venus,” a domain on the top of the hills, seven or eight miles from the city, is a large stone, twenty feet long (in line about N.W. and S.E.), ten feet broad, and three thick, leaning against an upright stone, eight feet high, and from three to five feet broad and thick [...]
The old man who drove me to the spot intimated that the visit to it was likely to lead to a double increase of my family, and this, coupled with the name of the hill, seems to point towards a tradition of phallic rites in connection with it.

Notes on Some Irish Antiquities
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9, (1880), pp. 137-145.

Sites within 20km of Mount Venus