What emerged was not a monument in any conventional sense, no enclosing ditch, no obvious boundary, just a modest square of ground, roughly ten metres by ten, scattered with the subtle signatures of daily life: pits, post-holes, and stake-holes pressed into the soil over what turned out to be several generations of use.

The excavation took place in 2001, ahead of construction of the N25 Youghal Bypass, and what it produced was a picture of domestic occupation that is quietly vivid despite its fragmentary nature. The earliest phase of building used stakes driven into the ground to form one or two structures, though their precise layout resisted easy interpretation. These were later replaced by a second phase of construction, suggesting the site was used, abandoned, and rebuilt across a considerable span of time. Three external hearths were found, positioned outside the main structures, along with large refuse pits containing coarseware pottery, whetstones, rubbing stones, and fragments of saddle querns, the flat stone grinding tools used to process grain. There was also burnt bone and burnt hazelnut shell, the latter a common find on prehistoric Irish sites, where hazelnuts served as a reliable and storable food source. Radiocarbon dating of samples from three of the pits placed occupation broadly between 1450 and 920 cal. BC, spanning the Middle and Late Bronze Age. A spread of charcoal-rich material covering many of the features may point to fire destroying one or both structures at the site's end. A separate structure recorded around ten metres to the south suggests the settlement extended beyond the excavated area.

The site itself is no longer visible; road construction was, after all, the reason it was dug in the first place. What remains is the record of a small community going about ordinary life in Cork three thousand years ago, leaving behind ground stone, broken pottery, and the ash of their hearths for a bypass to briefly, unexpectedly, bring back to light.