Porter Memorial Cross, St Patrick’s C of I Churchyard, Carncastle, Larne, Co Antrim

The Porter Memorial Cross is a late Victorian Celtic Cross, constructed between 1880 and 1899. It stands within the churchyard of St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Church, in a rural setting in open countryside near Ballygally. The cross is made of stone in the style of an Irish High Cross and is finely carved with Celtic interlacing ornamentation. It is located within a rectangular enclosure defined by rubble stone walls of fairly uniform height, with a higher gable to the south representing the remains of the old 17th-century church at Carncastle. The cross is positioned on axis with a central opening, secured by a wrought iron gate. The monument commemorates the Reverend Classon Porter, who died in 1885. He was the occupant of Ballygally Castle and is known for publishing a detailed account of the castle in the Larne Reporter in 1884, subsequently reprinted in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology in 1901. The cross stands within the area of an existing monument (SMR: ANT35:14).