The house itself has long since disappeared above ground, but excavation in 1974 revealed its outline on Inis Cealtra, the island sometimes called Holy Island, roughly twenty-eight metres south-south-west of the site's distinctive round tower. What emerged was a circular structure about ten metres in diameter, divided internally by straight partitions, furnished with a central hearth, and fitted with a projecting porch on its south-western side.

The construction technique was notably unusual. Rather than sinking posts into the ground in the conventional way, the builders appear to have rested large timber uprights, perhaps thirty centimetres in diameter, on surface pads of some kind. Around these ran a slotted outer frame, the ghost of which survived as a dark brown stain in the soil, along with small wattle-holes suggesting lighter timber or woven panels filled in the walls. The result was a building whose structural weight sat on the ground rather than being anchored into it, a method that left a surprisingly legible trace for excavators working some eight centuries later. The coin hoard found beneath the hearth places the house broadly within the Norman period in Ireland. One coin dated to the reign of King Stephen (1135 to 1154), while the remaining twenty were issued under Henry II (1154 to 1189). All twenty-one were described as very worn, meaning they had been in circulation for some time before they were concealed. Whether they were buried for safekeeping and never retrieved, or deposited deliberately as part of some other practice, is not recorded.