That is, in a sense, the whole point. A site once tentatively identified as an early monastic cell has left no visible surface trace whatsoever, and yet the ground beneath the pasture may once have sheltered one of those small, corbelled stone structures known as beehive cells, the kind of tight, domed enclosure in which early Christian monks lived and prayed in isolation across early medieval Ireland.

The site at Kilmahon has been cautiously linked to St Modan, whose feast day falls on the 6th of March, and whose name may be preserved in the place name itself. A researcher named McNamee, writing in 1942, recorded that the remains of what he called the "ancient Cell" were "of the slightest, but are just traceable, and seem to indicate the presence of one of those circular or bee-hive buildings." That description suggests he could still make out some faint ground-level evidence at the time. Gwynn and Hadcock, in their survey of medieval religious houses, included the site among possible early monasteries. Whatever was traceable in McNamee's day has since disappeared entirely, absorbed back into the field.