Annual Meeting 155 



internal measurement. The grave lay due East and West ; 

 lying within were the remains of a skeleton, which he raked out 

 and buried a few feet from the grave. No relics of any kind* 

 were found with the remains. 



The grave was of a class exactly similar to those so fre- 

 quently found in the Abbey field at Portmuck, and at Gransha, 

 Islandmagee, in which coins of the first Edwards were found, 

 that it is possible that it dates as late as between the 12th and 

 Hth centuries ; it may be earlier, but from its orientation and 

 similarity to graves known to be mediaeval, it may be regarded 

 as certainly not pre-Christian. The flat top of the mound was 

 under cultivation, and a very careful search of the surface showed 

 no sign of pottery or charcoal remains. This tends to indicate 

 that the mound is not, correctly speaking, a rath, but a burial 

 monument in which most probably other graves still exist. 



Ballylough Crannog. — As requested by the Committee, 

 the Hon. Secretary, by arrangement with, and by kind permission 

 of Colonel Traill, D.L., visited this site in August. The various 

 annals and other records make frequent mention of Ballylough, 

 otherwise Loughtown. During the Norman occupation it was 

 held under the Earldom of Ulster by the Savages, who with their 

 neighbours, the de Mandevilles, were the chief holders of land 

 in the Route. At a later date the annals refer to these lands as 

 being in the possession of the family of McQuillan, which is 

 almost undoubtedly a corruption of the Irish MacUghlin (son of 

 little Hugh) derived from a Hugh de Mandeville. It is probable 

 that the de Mandevilles combined the Savage estate with their 

 own by intermarriage, but no positive evidence is as yet forth- 

 coming. 



Several mentions occur showing that in the 16th century 

 the McQuillans lived in a crannog at Ballylough, where also a 

 castle of apparently this period was built, the piel tower of which 

 still remains. Early in the 17th centui-y, some time after the 

 expulsion of the McQuillans by the McDonnells, this property 

 was held under the Earls of Antrim by a Ijranch of the Stuarts 



