The remains came to light within a rath, the type of circular earthwork enclosure, typically used as a farmstead, that dots the Irish landscape in the thousands. What made this particular rath unusual was that the dead had been buried not in a dedicated cemetery but alongside what appeared to be an active domestic or working space, tucked into one sector of the enclosure while daily life, presumably, continued around them.

Excavation, carried out by Hurley in 1998 ahead of the development, uncovered twenty individuals in total. All had been laid out in the same manner, extended and face-up in unprotected graves, each body oriented east to west with the head pointing west, a burial practice broadly consistent with early Christian custom in Ireland. Twelve were spread across the south-east quadrant of the main enclosure, six were grouped closely together in an annexe attached to the main ring, and two were found cut into the fill of the fosse, the surrounding ditch, suggesting they were interred at a later point than the others. Radiocarbon dating of the bone placed the burials within a remarkably tight window, somewhere between AD 652 and 681. The fact that the graves were confined to a single part of the enclosure led the excavator to conclude that this was not a purpose-built burial ground; whatever function the rath served in the mid-seventh century, the dead shared the space with the living rather than occupying it exclusively.

The site had first come to attention in 1957, when human remains were reported and alarm was raised about the enclosure's future. More than four decades passed before that concern proved justified, and the excavation that followed before the bulldozers moved in recovered a small, precisely dated Early Medieval community in the process.