Giant's Ring

A wall to protect the site was constructed under the supervision of local land owner Arthur Hill-Trevor, 3rd Viscount Dungannon in 1837.

The inscribed stone tablet on the wall surrounding the site which details Viscount Dungannon's interest was carved by Belfast stonecarver Charles A Thompson about c.1919.

[5] It is generally assumed that the tomb structure in the centre is earlier than the ring and that the earthwork enclosure was created afterwards, perhaps as a function of activities that took place there.

Archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly believed that the Giant's Ring, like hundreds of other passage tombs built in Ireland during the Neolithic period, such as Newgrange, showed evidence for a religion which venerated the dead as one of its core principles.

He believed that this "cult of the dead" was just one particular form of European Neolithic religion, and that other megalithic monuments displayed evidence for different religious beliefs which were solar, rather than death-orientated.