Howardites
Meteorites of Britain and Ireland · Northern Ireland

The Crumlin meteorite

A stone that thumped into a County Antrim farm and was dug out still warm within a quarter of an hour.

Key facts

Fell
13 September 1902
Where
Crosshill, near Crumlin, County Antrim
Type
L5 ordinary chondrite
Mass
about 4.3 kg
Where it is kept
Natural History Museum, London; a plaster replica is in Dublin
Nation today
Northern Ireland

At about half past ten on the morning of 13 September 1902, explosions and a noise like a rocket were heard across several counties of Ulster. On a farm at Crosshill near Crumlin, the farmer saw something strike the ground, and a farmhand dug out a stone of about 4.3 kilograms within about fifteen minutes. It was still warm an hour later.

No bright fireball was reported, because the fall happened in daylight. That is common: by the time a meteorite is low enough to be heard, it has slowed down and stopped glowing, and the final part of its fall, called dark flight, lasts a minute or more.

Crumlin is an L5 ordinary chondrite. It was bought for the British Museum's natural history collections, now the Natural History Museum in London, where it remains.

Did you know?

Did you know?

A boy near the site claimed to have seen a dark object fall like a crow, which fits a stone in dark flight.

Did you know?

Crumlin was the last Irish fall for 67 years, until Bovedy in 1969.

Find out more

Nearest other British and Irish meteorites