Far fewer notice that scattered just outside the enclosing wall of the summit enclosure, to the west and north-west, there are the faint traces of somewhere between fifteen and twenty circular structures, each roughly five metres across, that predate or exist independently of that devotional landscape entirely.

The remains are described as ephemeral, meaning they survive as little more than low, indistinct outlines in the ground rather than standing walls or obvious earthworks. Their date is uncertain, which is itself telling; the mountain has drawn human activity across many periods, and these small circular hut sites, the kind of simple rounded shelters built from stone or turf that appear across the Irish landscape in various eras, have not yet yielded a clear answer about who built them or when. Two of the sites were excavated in 1995, which may have helped establish that they are genuine structural remains rather than natural features, though the broader cluster remains incompletely understood. Their position just outside the large enclosure that wraps around the summit suggests a deliberate relationship with whatever activity was taking place inside it, whether that was religious, seasonal, or practical.

Because the remains are so subtle, they are easy to walk past without realising what they are. Anyone reaching the summit and moving away from the main path towards the western and north-western edges of the enclosure wall is in the right area, but the traces demand patience and a willingness to read the ground carefully rather than look for anything dramatic.