Font, Calliaghstown Lower, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Religious Objects
On the western slope of Saggart Hill in south County Dublin, a modest field site carries the kind of layered past that rarely announces itself.
The place is known simply as "Font," a name that points directly to its most tangible former feature: a holy water font once found here, the sort of carved stone basin associated with early Christian practice and local devotion, used to hold blessed water for the faithful passing through. The font itself is no longer in situ, but the name has stuck, preserving the memory of a sacred presence that has otherwise largely vanished from the landscape.
The site's significance extends beyond the font. A house called Slademore Lodge, recorded in the area, was identified in the Ordnance Survey Letters of 1837 as the location of a burial ground, giving the site an additional layer of religious and funerary history. The OS Letters were a remarkable nineteenth-century project in which scholars and surveyors recorded local antiquities, placenames, and traditions across Ireland, and their identification of a burial ground here suggests the site was already understood as ancient by that point. Historically, the land was associated with St. Mary de Hogges, a Benedictine nunnery founded in medieval Dublin, one of the more significant female religious houses in the city's history. The connection implies that this hillside in what is now County Dublin once formed part of the nunnery's rural landholdings, a quiet agricultural and spiritual extension of an institution based many miles away in the capital.
The site sits on the west-facing slope of Saggart Hill, so those making their way there should expect open, elevated ground with wide views back towards the plain. There is no formal visitor infrastructure, and the physical remains are subtle at best; the font is gone, and the burial ground is not visibly marked. What remains is essentially a landscape to be read carefully, with the placename itself as the primary clue. Consulting the relevant Ordnance Survey maps beforehand, and cross-referencing the site reference DU024-003002, will help locate the precise area within the broader hillside. This is the kind of place that rewards those already comfortable with reading the Irish countryside for traces of what is no longer immediately visible.