No ruin, no tower, no souterrain or souterrain complex; just a hearth, the most domestic of all human traces, catalogued and mapped and left to sit quietly in the landscape.

A hearth in the archaeological record usually means evidence of a former fire site, whether a simple scorched patch of earth, a stone-lined hollow, or the accumulated charcoal and ash of repeated use over time. Such features can date from the prehistoric period through to the early modern era, and they tend to survive as subtle subsurface deposits rather than visible surface features. Clonmoney itself is a small rural townland in Clare, a county whose limestone terrain has preserved an unusual density of archaeological remains from many different periods. Without more detailed information about this particular site, little more can be said about its age, its form, or the lives it once warmed.