A farmhouse in Kilnacally, County Clare, was entered into the Record of Monuments and Places in 1996 with the cautious designation "House, 17th century, possible", a label that implied something genuinely old might be standing on that level ground at the foot of a gentle east-facing slope. When someone actually went to look in 2000, the structure told a different story.

What they found was a five-bay, one-storey farmhouse with a loft and a modern front porch, almost certainly dating from the 19th century rather than the 17th. No physical evidence supported the earlier date. A five-bay layout, meaning the facade is divided into five vertical sections typically with a central door and two windows on either side, was a common format for modest rural farmhouses built during the 1800s across Ireland. The "possible" in the original listing had done a great deal of speculative work, and the inspection quietly retired it. Archaeological testing carried out under licence in 2006 extended the investigation to a large area roughly 45 metres to the north-east of the house, covering a plot of around 130 metres in each direction. That work produced no archaeological material either. The ground, in short, gave nothing back.