46 metres across. It is a medieval baptismal font, and it has almost certainly been in or around this spot for centuries, weathered and unannounced, the kind of object that graveyard visitors walk past without quite registering what they are looking at. A font of this type would have been used to hold water for the sacrament of baptism, typically carved from local stone and fixed within a church where it served the surrounding community across generations. This one endures in the north aisle of the church ruins at Killiney, quietly outlasting the building that once enclosed it.

The place has an unusual name in Irish, Cill Iníon Léinín, meaning the church of the seven daughters of Léinín. According to tradition, the monastery here was founded in the sixth century by a saint named Aighleann, along with her sisters, and the settlement took its identity from these women. That a coastal Dublin site retains such a specific early medieval foundation story, tied to a named female founder and her community, makes it distinctive. The Anglicised form, Killiney, has since become far better known for its Victorian villas and sea views than for any memory of Aighleann, but the graveyard and its ruins preserve something of that earlier layer.

The church ruins and graveyard are accessible via Marino Avenue West, a road leading east off Killiney Hill Road. The site sits within an active graveyard, so access is generally straightforward, though the terrain around the ruins can be uneven. The font itself rests on the ground inside what remains of the north aisle; it is easy to miss if you are not specifically looking for it, given its modest scale and the way it blends with the surrounding stonework. For those who want a closer look without visiting in person, a three-dimensional digital model of the font is available online at skfb.ly/oEzyU, produced as part of the survey compiled by Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy and revised by Caimin O'Brien.