A corn-drying kiln, the kind of structure that would have been unremarkable to any medieval Irish farmer, left behind a precise and readable impression in the earth, one that archaeologists were able to interpret almost like a set of instructions for a process long since forgotten in practice.

The kiln was excavated by James Eogan and Richard O'Brien, and what they uncovered was an oval pit, 3.5 metres long, 2 metres wide, and just over half a metre deep at its lowest point. The northern end was the deepest, and the clay there had been oxidised, a clear sign of sustained heat. Running along the base were two parallel rows of five stake-holes each, the ghost of a timber platform on which grain would have been spread to dry. Two shallow trenches extended outward from the south-east and south-west corners of the pit, almost certainly serving as flues to channel air and heat into the chamber below. Corn-drying kilns of this type were common across early medieval Ireland, used to dry harvested grain before milling or storage, particularly in a climate where damp weather could ruin a crop. The careful arrangement of stake-holes and flues in this example shows how considered even a seemingly modest piece of rural infrastructure could be.