Inscriptions on the back of the shrine record that it was commissioned after 1091 by the Uí Néill High King Domnall Ua Lochlainn and completed c. 1105 by the metalworker Cú Dúilig, about whom nothing is known.

The objects had been for a period buried in their garden until the early 19th century, when the last member of the family, a cleric, asked Adam McLean, a merchant from Belfast, to dig them up.

[6] The bell and shrine were eventually acquired by the Royal Irish Academy for £500,[7] and passed into the collection of the National Museum of Ireland in the late 19th century.

Bronze hand-bells (Irish: clog) are one of the most numerous surviving forms of early medieval relics in Ireland,[8] and were typically passed between successive generations of abbots and clerics.

[16] St. Patrick's bell was enshrined c. 1100 by the High King of Ireland Domnall Ua Lochlainn (reigned 1094—1121 AD), and the bishop of Armagh.

[17] Its front is split between an upper crest and main body and is decorated by a series of plates containing complex openwork designs and geometric cross-patterns.

[20] The centre of its main section contains a large blue glass boss (or stud) holding a cloisonné (held in place by strips of wire) insert.

[21] This section once held thirty panels of gold filigree and zoomorphic interlace, although a number of these have been damaged or lost and are now either replaced with coloured stones or empty.

[17] The positioning and intricacy of the individual panels indicate that the shrine was modelled in advance on a flat surface with a compass and T-square, achieving equal ratios and measures of mathematical distance, proportion, volume and line.

They each have a perforated cube and rings that were once used to attach carrying chains (lost since the 19th century),[17] while the base plate is loose and could be slid open so as to remove the bell.