1975:0001 - BALLYMACALDRACK, Antrim

This well-known court tomb, familiar for over 40 years as ‘Dooey’s Cairn, Dunloy’, was excavated in 1935 by Professor E. Estyn Evans. It was recently given to the Historic Monuments and Buildings Branch by Mr. Pearse Dooey. The opportunity was taken in 1975 to do a limited amount of excavation as a preliminary to conservation and presentation to the public. The ‘cremation passage’ behind the burial chamber, a feature still unique in Ireland, has of recent years aroused further interest in Britain as a result of recent discoveries in Scotland, Yorkshire and Wessex.

Clearance of the forecourt blocking deposit not only allowed re-erection of a fallen and broken orthostat but yielded a fair quantity of potsherds and a little charcoal. Abundant charcoal in the cremation passage’ gave a C14 date of before 3000 BC. A lesser quantity of charcoal from beneath the forecourt blocking gave a date of about 2600 BC. It will be recalled that Prof. Evans found a quantity of birch bark among the charcoal in the ‘cremation passage’, a discovery since paralleled at Lochhill cairn, Kirkudbrightshire, and Dalladies long barrow, Kincardineshire. There was little evidence of this at Ballymacaldrack in 1975. Pottery found in the forecourt blocking in 1975 included further sherds of Evans’ Beacharra/Ballyalton Pot E and sherds of plain globular bowls, some so small as probably to have functioned as cups. A further result of clearing the forecourt was the discovery that the forecourt facade was of post-and panel construction.