[5][1][6] From the early 19th century onward, the site was "probably the most important area for supplying cut stone blocks of granite for the construction of many of Dublin city's major public buildings", according to a report by the Geological Survey of Ireland.

[13] According to Patrick Wyse Jackson, curator of the Geological Museum in Trinity College, close examination of Ballknockan granite reveals its constituent minerals, which include:

[15] Granite was commonly known as "firestone" until the late eighteenth century;[16] not from its classification as an igneous rock (which at this stage was still unknown), but rather from its initial usage as a material from which to make fire grates and chimney pieces owing to its heat-resistant properties.

[13] According to Wyse Jackson and Caulfield, "Granite was reportedly first quarried in west Wicklow in the early 1700s from several openings at Baltyboys near Blessington, and from 1740 in more significant volumes at Woodend and Threecastles nearby and then from Golden Hill" near the village of Manor Kilbride.

[2] According to the Wicklow People, "Olligan and his workers made the move because the stone around Golden Hill in Kilbride was running out and awareness was growing of how fine the granite (was) up in the mountains".

[8] Mary Immaculate, Refuge of Sinners Church in Rathmines, Dublin built between 1850 and 1856, was constructed using granite from Ballyknockan as well as calp limestone from quarries in Kimmage as well as Donnybrook.

[35] By the time of Griffith's Valuation, which visited in 1852, there were four quarries, operated by the following men:[8] The Museum Building at Trinity College Dublin, built between 1853 and 1857, was constructed primarily of calp limestone which was "faced externally with blocks, nine inches thick, of Ballyknockan granite", as per Wyse Jackson.

[8][37] Aside from the surnames of Olligan, Holligan, Hanlon, O'Reilly and Brady, other families associated with quarrying over the decades have included Foster, Freeman, Costello, Reilly, and Doyle.

[39] In 2014, John McEvoy, a descendent of the same family, was commissioned to sculpt a granite cross dedicated to Irish doctor Marie Elizabeth Hayes (1874-1908) for a memorial garden in the church.

[40]: 11:04 After the Irish Civil War ended in 1923, many workers at Barnacullia were employed producing stone for repairing the buildings which had been damaged, such as the GPO, Custom House and Four Courts.

[40]: 12:16 Pictures exist of the Ballyknockan Brass Band celebrating the 1932 Eucharistic Congress at nearby Valleymount church, and marching down O'Connell Street as part of commemorations for the 25th anniversary of the 1916 Rising which took place in 1941.

Jim Murphy from Barnacullia recalled that for the commission for Mullingar Cathedral (built 1933-1936), roughly 200 stone cutters were employed at various quarries all over Three Rock Mountain.

[45] From 1960 until at least 1993, concrete buildings in Dublin were "usually" still being "covered with a thin veneer or cladding of cut stone" (rarely more than 2 cm thick), according to Wyse Jackson, utilising "granite and other igneous rocks, from Wicklow, or imported from Scandinavia, Brazil and elsewhere".

Most of the 26 minute episode focused on restoration works then underway at the old Parliament House at College Green, where a Ballyknockan stoneworker named George Flynn was filmed grouting the base of an ionic column.

[49] In 1993, Wyse Jackson noted the use of a type of "pseudo-granite" on a building on High Street, consisting of concrete containing flecks of mica, indicating how cheaper granite alternatives were becoming available in the city.

[13] At that stage the granite was being extracted in large blocks by way of the modern methods of "low-yield explosives or diamond-studded wire, and then sawn and finished before being fitted to buildings by metal ties".

[2] In 1997, a 20-tonne tablet of Ballyknockan granite was shipped to Maryland, United States, where it stands at the Antietam National Battlefield as a memorial to the Irish Brigade (who served as part of the Union Army during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865).

[51] The Washington Post noted that it was "the last monument the government... (would) permit at the hallowed Civil War site", and that the texture of the stone resembled "coarse bread".

[51] From 2000, Heritage Plans for County Wicklow included actions to support a "Ballyknockan Granite Park" at the quarries, but as of 2014 it was reported that the local committee responsible for such a venture was 'seemingly defunct'.

[1] In July 2007, a 150-year-old limestone staircase collapsed at the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History on Merrion Street, Dublin, injuring ten people.

[2] The restoration project resulted in commissions for "standard items such as gatepiers" but also for unusual pieces such as "a Chinese style granite dragon head, arranged to be fitted with pipe work so that steam will come out through its nose".

[2][8] As of August 2015, journalist David Medcalf reported that "the main Olligan quarry now trades as Creedon's and it continues to produce great granite for the requirements of the new millennium".

[44] McEvoy demonstrated his recent work repairing a section of chimney capping from a building in the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin which had been damaged due to frost action.

[57] Valleymount Hall hosted an exhibition from 23–24 June 2018 on the history of the stonecutting in the area, including photographs, newspaper clippings, as well as the implements and tools of the quarry men.

[63] From 2–6 May 2024, the inaugural iteration of a new music and heritage festival named Féile an Chnocaín took place in Ballyknockan village, aimed at "celebrat(ing) the history of the quarry".

[10] The opening ceremony, held on 4 May, featured an "introduction to the quarries, displays of stonework, a history talk, poetry by Ger Devine, and live music".

[29] Writing in The Wicklow People in 2015, journalist David Medcalf noted the set of ear defenders around a modern quarryman's neck, a "symbol of a concern for health and safety which was never much of a worry for previous generations".

[2] In 1906, J. Adams, writing in The Irish Naturalist, noted how the previous July he had obtained several fronds of "parsley fern growing in crevices between stones at Ballyknockan, near the granite quarries".

The Ballyknockan granite quarries were one of a number of locations visited by the Dublin Naturalist's Field Club on 12 July 1935, as well as nearby Lockstown Bridge (which crosses the King's River) and Killough bog (subsequently submerged between 1937-47 by the flooding of the valley for Poulaphouca Reservoir).