In 1983, burrowing close to the corner of the largest of the three early medieval churches at this quiet Clare valley site, they brought a complete human jawbone, teeth intact, to the surface. It was reburied shortly afterwards, returning to the ground from which it had been so abruptly disturbed.

Oughtmama is already a place of some archaeological weight, home to a cluster of three early Christian churches set into the Burren landscape. The recovery of human remains through animal activity is not unusual at sites with long histories of burial, where the ground holds layer upon layer of the dead, but the detail recorded by Coffey in 1985 is a reminder of how much remains below the surface, literally, at such places. A jawbone complete with teeth is a reasonably robust piece of skeletal material, capable of surviving centuries underground, and its appearance at the church corner hints at a burial tradition extending right up to the walls of the building, a common enough practice at early ecclesiastical sites where proximity to sacred ground was considered significant.