The partial excavation that followed revealed a roughly rectangular enclosure, approximately 40 metres east to west and 35 metres north to south, with rounded corners and a surrounding fosse, the term for a ditch dug as a boundary or defensive feature. What made the site immediately interesting was the way that fosse changed character depending on the terrain: U-shaped and relatively shallow on the south side where the ground is level, it becomes a sharper, deeper V-shape to the north where the land begins to rise, suggesting the builders adapted their engineering to the natural slope rather than imposing a uniform design across it.

A radiocarbon date taken from material within the fosse placed the enclosure's origins somewhere between approximately AD 420 and 670, firmly within the Early Christian period in Ireland, a time when small enclosed farmsteads, often associated with a single family or kin group, were a common feature of the Irish countryside. Inside the enclosure, excavators uncovered two structures, one circular and one rectangular, both in the south-western corner, along with two souterrains, underground stone-lined passages typically used for storage or refuge, positioned in the western and eastern halves of the interior. There were also two corn-drying kilns and a small box furnace, a compact hearth arrangement used for more controlled heat, all of which point to a working agricultural settlement engaged in processing grain. The fosse itself appears to have silted up gradually over time, though the upper layers may have been deliberately backfilled at some point. Sometime in the seventh century, the settlement was expanded northward, with a second enclosure added immediately beyond the original boundary, hinting at growth or changing needs over generations.