Craigarogan

Passage Grave

ryaner May 27, 2026

The tiny hamlet of Roughfort lies just south of the old Antrim Road and its replacement, the M2 Belfast to Derry road. It’s a quiet, sleepy, semi-rural, middle class idyll with a quite amazing, one-off ‘passage tomb’ called variously Carn Greine, Carngraney, Granny’s Grave or Graina’s Grave, all widely regarded to be derivations of Carn na Gréine, the cairn of the sun.

Easily accessed over the field gate, we asked permission of the folk in the house opposite to park in their driveway – this duly granted we vaulted the gate and headed down. When Fourwinds visited prior to the publication in 2008 of his Monu-Mental About Prehistoric Antrim he found the tomb badly overgrown with brambles, in danger of being swallowed completely. Thankfully this has changed and, since david’s visit in 2024, improved even more. The grass in the field is now a lush green, possibly soon to be used for grazing – mid-May is a good time to visit.

I’ve never seen anything quite like Carn na Gréine. Closest in similarity on the island to the Tramore group of passage tombs, as Fourwind’s says, I think this site even defies that comparison. The way it declines in height from the south-east down to the north-west tail-end; the sealed nature of each of what were mini-chambers and the discovery of human remains under each roofstone, seems to make this a truly one-off, not a passage tomb, nor a wedge tomb as it is sometimes called.

It lies there, much like a massive caterpillar, slouched down into the ground with an almost bulbous head at the top end – a sealed chamber of six stones supporting a large capstone to a height of about 2 metres. From there, it gradually diminishes in height until the last stone at the far end which lies unsupported on the ground. From either side it gives the impression of movement, sluggishly making its way up the slope on which it is sited. Well not really, but you have to allow for flights of the imagination here at the cairn of the sun. Fantastic.