The "kill" prefix derives from the Irish "cill", meaning a church or monastic cell, and its presence here points to an early ecclesiastical settlement of some kind, one substantial enough to have left behind not just a place of worship but what survives in the archaeological record as a dedicated residential structure associated with that religious community. An ecclesiastical residence of this kind would typically have housed a clergyman or members of a monastic foundation, set apart from ordinary domestic buildings by its function and, often, by its siting within or immediately adjacent to a sacred enclosure.