The six-inch Ordnance Survey map produced between 1899 and 1902 marks one of the structures as a nunnery, already noted as being in ruins at the time of survey. That label has since been questioned, with the more likely explanation being that the building was a mill, which would make considerably more practical sense on a water-encircled island with streams on both sides.

The more quietly intriguing detail comes from the historian William Carrigan, writing in 1905. In his account, he noted that roughly forty yards north of the ruined mill building, and still within the natural enclosure of the island, there survive the remains of a small circular structure, which he tentatively identified as an anchorite's cell. An anchorite was a religious recluse who withdrew from the world into a fixed dwelling, often attached to or near a church or monastic site, to live a life of prayer and contemplation. The circular form Carrigan described would be consistent with early Irish ecclesiastical buildings, and the island setting would have suited such a purpose well, offering natural seclusion without the need for elaborate construction. Whether the mill and the possible cell belonged to the same period or the same community is not recorded.

The island is now heavily overgrown with deciduous trees and scrub, and the circular structure Carrigan described could not be located during more recent investigation. The ruins of the mill building may be traceable, but the cell, if it survives at all, lies somewhere beneath the vegetation, unconfirmed and unclassified.