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XV. 



INVESTIGATION OF THE CAIENE GEANNIA CBOMLECH 

 NEAR MALLUSK, CO. ANTRIM. 



By H. C. LAWLOE. 



Read November 30, 1914. Published January 29, 1915. 



About 300 yards from the ancient mound or rath known as the Bough Fort 

 in the Grange of Mallusk, lies a probably unique prehistoric monument 

 known as the Cairne Grannia, locally called the Granny's Grave (Ordnance 

 Survey Map No. 56). It consists of an ordinary cromlech, or so-called 

 Druid's Altar, to which are attached in a straight row from south-west to 

 north-east eight smaller cromlechs, measuring in all about 45 feet in length, 

 the whole standing on an oval plot of ground raised about 9 inches above the 

 level of the surrounding field. Tradition, referred to in Lewis' Toiwgraphical 

 Dictionary, published about 1830, says that in former times the Cairne 

 Grannia was surrounded by a stone circle about 60 feet in diameter, and that 

 these stones were removed during agricultural improvements, and that in 

 removing them several cinerary urns were found. But there seems to be no 

 actual evidence confirming this tradition, although possibly quite correct. 

 The late Bishop Beeves in his Ecclesiastical Antiquities, p. 66, describes the 

 Cairne Grannia, or Carnegrany, the Cairne of the Sun, as " consisting of a 

 series of ten chambers, or large slabs raised on side supporters like a series of 

 cromlechs forming steps commencing at the north-east, and ascending 

 gradually for a length of 40 feet towards the south-west. The largest stone 

 is raised 7 or 8 feet. It is 6 feet 9 inches by 5 feet broad by 2 feet thick. 

 The smallest, which is on the ground, is 5 feet long by 3 feet 3 inches broad." 



m 



Fig. 1. 



Bishop Eeeves wrote this nearly seventy years ago. At the present time 

 the measurements and some details of description do not quite correspond 

 with Dr. Eeeves' description. The height of the chief or south-west 

 cromlech is barely 6 feet above the surrounding ground. The length of the 

 series is quite 45 feet. The top stones of the last two or north-east 

 cromlechs are lying on the ground, but, counting these, the total number of 



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