Look at the east gable, however, and the stonework begins to tell a different story. A pointed doorway, just over a metre wide, sits at ground-floor level, and directly above it is a small blocked recess whose square dimensions and placement suggest it once held an armorial plaque, the kind a wealthy household would display to advertise its lineage. Both features were hidden under render for years, and a sandstone chimney projection resting on a corbel course, a row of projecting stones used to support masonry above, rises further along the same face. A large water spout or slop-stone protrudes from the upper courses of the south wall, a practical detail that points, along with the hood-moulding noted over a rear window, to a building of genuine antiquity.

The house at No. 12 O'Connell Street was identified by Lyons in 1936 as a town house of the Butlers of Ormond, the powerful Anglo-Norman dynasty that dominated much of Munster for centuries. The architectural evidence, particularly the chamfered jambs and the pointed doorway, supports a 16th or early 17th-century date. The building carries one further layer of historical association: it is reputedly the house where Oliver Cromwell lodged following the siege of Clonmel in 1650. That siege, one of the more costly engagements of the Cromwellian campaign in Ireland, ended with the town's garrison slipping away overnight after inflicting heavy casualties on the Parliamentary forces. Whether Cromwell actually slept here cannot be verified, but the claim has attached itself to the building long enough to become part of the local fabric of the place.