Saggart Hill (Slievethoul), with its bristling array of masts like quills on the back of a porcupine, is the westernmost of the Dublin Mountains. It’s a somewhat neglected place, no doubt, but it responds well to a bit of interest. Starting from the forest entrance at
LynchRd (O024 235), a track circles the hill and comes close to the summit on its southwestern side, with an access route leading up.
The hill doesn’t only give fine views of the plains of Kildare to the west and the rolling mountains to the east of Brittas and Blessingon. It also provides a glimpse of the past. To begin with, you find yourself walking here, not on Leinster granite, but on clayey deposits, sandstone, siltstone and shale, laid down at the end of the last glacial period along the rim of the midland ice sheet, where its meltwaters, together with those of the glaciers descending from the mountains to the east, formed a great lake, far bigger than the present Pollaphuca Reservoir. Who knows if Brittas Lake, of which there is a good view from Saggart Hill, is not a tiny remnant of the original lake, as some would suggest? The OS Map does identify a bushy island there as an age-old crannóg, but other accounts I have read say the lake was only created in the 19th century to form a head of water for mills on the Camac River, which flows on to meet the Liffey just downstream of Heuston Station. Paper and even gunpowder mills once used this watercourse in Clondalkin.
Another glimpse of the past comes from the numerous megalithic monuments that dot Saggart Hill and its northward prolongation, Knockananiller and Knockandreenagh. The passage grave on Saggart Hill itself is overshadowed now by a big mast but is still readily visible as an overgrown mound, which seems to mark the highest spot on the flat summit. The central chamber has been disturbed but the inner walls are discernible, as are two large kerbstones on the south side. It’s sad to see the legacy of the past pushed aside in this way by technocracy, but at least, as a 2006 study would assure us, radiant energy on the hill is within safe limits, so walkers can probably examine the megalith without fear of being fried!
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