Less remarked upon is the evidence of people simply living there: the oval footprint of a medieval house, roughly ten metres across, uncovered in the soil a short distance south-west of that same tower.

The traces were excavated in 1974, and the findings were recorded by de Paor. What emerged was the outline of an oval dwelling, a house form that sits within a long tradition of vernacular building in early medieval Ireland, where curved or rounded ground plans were common before rectangular construction became the norm. The site lies about twenty-five metres from the round tower, and close to a fenced enclosure where a second house of comparable size was also uncovered. The proximity of the two structures suggests that this part of the island supported something more than a purely ceremonial or ecclesiastical function; people occupied it, built homes, and organised domestic space around the religious core.