44 



After the reading of Mr. M'Minn's paper, Dr. J. S. Holdkn, 

 F.G.S., read the following, on " Giants' Graves." 



"The stone monuments of the pre-historic past are of great 

 interest, as they cast some light on an early race of people who 

 once lived where we now live. County Antrim is rich in many of 

 these lithic records, such as standing-stones, cromlechs, cairns, 

 circles, and what are popularly known as giants' graves. These 

 latter occur in many parts of Ireland, and in the west the Irish 

 call them Leaba Diarmada agus Grainne — the bed of Dermot 

 and Grace — from the Ossianic tale that Dermot O'Danne eloped 

 with Grace, the daughter of King Cormac Mac-Art, and the 

 betrothed spouse of the great Finn Mac-Coul. Finn pursued 

 them, but the lovers eluded pursuit for a year arjd a day, sleeping 

 at a different place each night under a leaba or bed erected by 

 Dermot after his day's journey. According to this legend, there 

 are just 366 of them in Ireland. 



" Lying between Larne and Glenarm, in the townlands of Goaks- 

 town and Dunteige, are two of these " giants' graves," which were 

 opened and examined by Lord Antrim and the reader, and found to 

 have little to do with giants. They show three distinct parts — 1st, an 

 outer enclosure of an oblong form, which, in the Goakstown one, 

 measures 35 feet by 16, and consists of 26 pillar blocks of basalt 

 roughly four-sided ; 2nd, a cromlech inside the enclosure at the 

 S.W. end ; 3rd, a covered alley 4 feet square and 2 1 feet long, in 

 which were lying charred human remains, with fragments of rude 

 urns, showing that this portion was used for burial by cremation. 



"One of the principal objects for which "giants' graves" were 

 erected is evidently for interments — not of an individual, but of a 

 family or sept — as those examined contained the remains of several 

 cremations ; these, indeed, had been disturbed at some remote 

 period — likely by the Danish pirates of the 9th century, who 

 infested all the east coast, and generally found the old places of 

 interment worth robbing, as often articles of value were left with 

 the dead. But besides a place of burial, there was likely another 

 object in their erection —that of sacrifice and worship; and for 



