In a ritual act, this timber structure was filled with stones, deliberately burnt down and then covered with earth to create the mound which stands today.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, "the [Eamhain Mhacha] of myth and legend is a far grander and mysterious place than archeological excavation supports".

In the second century AD, Greek geographer Ptolemy noted a place called Isamnion somewhere in southeastern Ulster.

[5] The site consists of a circular enclosure 250 metres (820 feet) in diameter, marked by a large bank and ditch encircling the hill.

[7] In the eighth century BC (Bronze Age), a ring of timber poles was raised at the western site, where the high mound now stands.

It was 40 metres in diameter and consisted of an outer wall and four inner rings of posts (probably holding up a roof), which circled a huge central pillar.

[10] Scholars suggest that the event was a sacrificial offering to the gods and that the structure was symbolically given to the Otherworld by being ritually burned and buried.

Dr Chris Lynn has likened it to the 'wicker man' rite allegedly carried out by the Gauls, in which a large wooden effigy is burned with a living sacrifice inside.

[13] It may be an attempt to replicate an ancient burial mound (sídhe), which were believed to be portals to the Otherworld and the homes of ancestral gods.

[11] He believes the mound was made as a platform on which druids would perform ceremonies and on which kings would be crowned, while drawing power and authority from the gods and ancestors.

[11] Another theory is that the monument symbolizes a union of the three main classes of society: druids (the wooden frame), warriors (the stones) and farmers (the soil).

[11] Dr Lynn writes: "It seems reasonable to suggest that, in the beginning of the first century BC, Navan was an otherworld place, the home of the gods and goddesses.

[11] A recent study used remote sensing (including lidar, photogrammatry, and magnetic gradiometry) to map the site, and found evidence of Iron Age and medieval buildings underground, which co-author Patrick Gleeson says suggests that Navan Fort was "an incredibly important religious center and a place of paramount sacral and cultural authority in later prehistory".

[16] Conchobar's great hall at Emain was called by medieval writers in Chraebruad (the red-branched or red-poled edifice), and his royal warriors are named the Red Branch Knights in English translations.

[18] One tale says that Macha, queen of the Ulaidh, forced her enemy's sons to dig the great bank-and-ditch after marking it out with her neck-brooch (eomuin), hence the name.

[18] The Annals of the Four Masters says that the Three Collas conquered the area in 331 AD, burning Emain Macha and driving the Ulaidh eastwards over the River Bann.

[19] Many other characters from Irish mythology are associated with Emain Macha, including: Until 1985, the site was threatened by the growth of a nearby limestone quarry.

[21] Irish heavy metal band Waylander also has a song called "Emain Macha" on their 1998 album Reawakening Pride Once Lost.

"Emain Macha" is the name of a place in the computer games Dark Age of Camelot,[22] Mabinogi and The Bard's Tale.

"Eamhain Macha" is the name of the capital of Ulster in the "Viking Invasion" expansion to the video game "Medieval Total War".