(See the Longstone Rath Metrology page for more detailed measurements.)

At its centre stands the "longstone" which was excavated by Macalister in 1912. It is granitic, not a local stone, and would have required dozens of men to pull it from the nearest granite-stone area 10 miles to the east. It measures 20 feet high of which 3 feet go into the earth and the bottom foot was placed in a socket carved from the bedrock. It was clearly designed to last.

At some later date, c.2000BC, a stone burial cist (like a box) was built beside the stone, and Macalister found two cremated bodies with some grave goods (including a bronze ring which I wear sometimes). Two layers of ash were found inside the large earthen rath, and perhaps the rath was filled with brushwood whch was burnt after the funerals to signal the burials of the men - probably local chiefs - to a wide area.

Many theories exist about the function of such rings. I believe it was a fixed observatory, so that people could determine the seasons by star movements whose positions were measured by staves placed around the ring. The hilltop setting allowed the best view of the heavens. Possibly it came to have religious importance later on - hence the burials.

Others say that the stone-entering-the-ground-in-a-ring symbolised a fertility aspect, linking earth to heaven. But in which case they need not have built it on a hilltop.

100 meters away a burial mound was found c.1980, carbon dated to c.450AD (just before Christianity) in a field where the famous Irish footballer Niall Quinn is building his home.