And measuring is exactly what rewards attention here. Two upright stones are aligned on a northeast-to-southwest axis, a orientation common to Bronze Age stone rows in Munster and thought by some researchers to relate to solar or lunar events. Beside them lies a prostrate slab of considerable size, over three and a half metres long and more than a metre wide. Then there is the fourth stone, leaning markedly to the south, its purpose unresolved.

Stone rows, which typically consist of between two and six standing stones set in a line, are concentrated in Cork and Kerry in greater numbers than almost anywhere else in Europe, yet individual examples remain poorly understood. The Knockatlowig arrangement was catalogued by Seán Ó Nualláin in 1988, whose systematic survey of Cork and Kerry megalithic monuments remains a foundational reference for the region. The two uprights are modest in scale, the taller standing around 1.2 metres, but the fallen slab to their west is a different proposition altogether, its sheer bulk suggesting it may once have formed a significant terminal or outlier to the row. That leaning fourth stone, positioned just to the east of the prostrate slab, adds a note of genuine ambiguity. It is the right size to have been a standing stone, but whether it belongs to the original design, fell at some point, or was always peripheral, remains unclear.