| Montpelier - Standing Stone |
This is quite a hike. The hill from the car park is very steep. When you come on to the top of the hill you first see the building that was The Hell Fire club. To the rear is the tomb. Now nothing more than a low mound with the remnants of a ditch, this was once definitely a passage tomb. It was hard to spot where the entrance would have been, but there is a definite dip in the center that must have been the chamber. The view more than makes up for the lack of tomb as the whole of Dublin bay is clearly visible.
The stories surrounding the building here are numerous and some interesting curse stories revolve around the use of a standing stone in its construction. I assume a lot of the building material was robbed from the cairn.
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_All Sites Visited On 8th September 2001 « Previous Site Next Site »
There are actually the remains of two passage tombs on the hilltop. The smallest and most denuded has the concrete OS trig point on it. This is just a low, raised platform now which is situated to the south of the building.
The larger example, which is to the rear of the building, is bigger than I remembered it to be, reaching up to 1.5m high in places. There is a good section of surrounding ditch to the south side of the mound. In this ditch 5 kerbstones can be seen and two other detected just beneath the sod.
I approached the top of the hill the long way this time by walking almost to the southern end and then up. At the southwest corner the view looks out towards Piperstown Hill and the entrance to the Glenasmole Valley.
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_Follow the R115 south from Dublin and park in the car park at O121 237 (there is a big sign saying Hell Fire Club). Right by the entrance to the car park there is a path leading up the hill, follow this to the top.
A Random Selection of Nearby Monuments
 Lemnagh Beg (Co. Antrim) |  Sheemore (central tomb) (Co. Leitrim) |  Magheracar (Co. Donegal) |
 Keadeen (Co. Wicklow) |  Knockmany (Co. Tyrone) |  Fairy Castle (Co. Dublin) |
