  A sample of carbon-rich stars (C-stars) in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
was selected from the combined 2MASS and DENIS catalogues on the basis of their
$J-K_s$ colour. This sample was extended to include confirmed C--stars from the
Rebeirot et al. (1993) spectroscopic atlas. In this combined sample (N = 1152),
a smaller number (N = 1079) were found to have MACHO observations. For this
sub--sample, light curves were determined and 919 stars were found to have high
quality light-curves with amplitudes of at least 0.05 mag. Of these stars, only
4% have a well--defined single period -- most of these have multiple
well-defined periods, while 15% have highly irregular light--curves. The
distribution of the logarithm of the period versus magnitude, colour, period
ratio (if applicable), and amplitude was analyzed and compared with previous
works. Variable C-stars are distributed in three sequences: B, C and D from
Wood et al. (1999), and do not populate sequences with periods shorter than
$\log P \sim 1.5$. Stellar ages and masses were estimated using stellar
evolutionary models.
