Megalith to feature on Ulster Giants TV show

Megalith to feature on Ulster Giants TV show

1 July 2020

THE imposing standing stone in the heart of Delamont Country Park outside Killyleagh features in next week in a new series of UTV’s Ulster Giants.

The giant megalith — erected to mark the start of the new millennium in 2000 — commands spectacular views of nearby Strangford Lough and is one of the country park’s most inspiring features.

Celebrating Northern Ireland’s rich civil engineering heritage, the UTV series sees presenter

Joe Mahon travel across the country to uncover the inspiring stories behind gigantic structures and the people who created them.    

In this his third series, Joe returns with another fascinating set of programmes celebrating the mighty achievements of the past that have transformed our daily living  and reveals the cutting-edge technology that is shaping the future of our infrastructure. 

With the help of the experts in their respective fields, Joe reveals the stories behind some of Northern Ireland’s well-known landmarks and also sheds light on how civil engineering is in operation quite literally beneath our feet!

Get ready to go salt mining, quarry blasting, castle roofing, engine restoring, road surfacing and flood preventing to name a few of the activities that Joe gets involved with in this series.

In the opening episode which airs next Monday night at 8pm, Joe visits Delamont which nestles on the shores of the internationally acclaimed waterway.

The country park is home to the largest monolith or standing stone in the UK and Ireland, with the significant landmark standing 10 metres tall and weighing in at almost 50 tonnes.

Ancient civilisations throughout the world marked important occasions and cosmic events by erecting megaliths, often in circles or other formations, but sometimes as free-standing monoliths. There are over 30,000 megaliths in Europe alone but the one outside Killyleagh is quite possibly the most recent of them all.  

It was erected in 1999 with one thousand young people raising the so-called Strangford Stone using only their bare hands and a lot of scientific know-how. 

Joe speaks to the people involved in the original design and installation of the stone which was a feat in civil, mechanical and electrical engineering. 

Safety was a massive consideration, given that 1,000 young people were to be on site pulling the stone upright by hand into position.

It is certainly a very special monument, not only because it’s a Millennium Stone, but also because of the remarkable way in which it was erected.

Among those whom Joe talks to are Saintfield’s Martyn Todd, who was heavily involved in the megalith project. His daughter, Katy, one of the volunteers who helped pull the giant stone into place.

The tallest megalith in the British Isles faces the Mourne Mountains from where it was excavated.

After being quarried in the Mournes, the huge stone was transported by road to the country park and was described by the Millennium Commission as “one of the simplest and most directly appealing of all the year 2000 projects.”

Four years before it was hauled into place, a group of people decided to bring 1,000 young people together to celebrate the start of a new millennium by pulling up the stone.

They hoped, as the peace process was gaining momentum, to involve young people from all backgrounds in Northern Ireland to create a lasting testament to a shared future.

In November 1996, the Millennium Commission awarded £250,000 to the Strangford Stone project, with the remaining costs donated as contributions in kind by all the people who worked on it.

The former Down Council gave permission for Delamont to become home to the stone which is located on an elevated site which boasts superb views over Strangford Lough and towards Slieve Croob and the Mountains of Mourne.

The McConnell family quarried a single block of granite weighing over 200 tonnes — the largest ever-quarried in Ireland — trimmed it along the grain of rock, using the ancient plug and feathers technique, to its smallest natural size, twelve and a half metres long.

However, during the trimming, a weakness in the granite was discovered, resulting in the stone being split into two parts and then rejoined with three stainless steel dowels.

A special steel cradle to support the stone during the pull was designed, as were special low-stretch ropes, a hydraulic safety system and the three metres deep concrete foundation for the stone. Others recruited and trained the teams of young people or provided legal, financial and insurance support for the project.

Anyone unable to tune in next Monday night can watch the programme on www.itv.com/utvprogrammes.