The kilns, shaped roughly like a figure-of-eight or dumbbell when viewed from above, each consist of two interconnected chambers: a deeper firing chamber where heat was generated, and a shallower drying chamber above where grain would have been spread to dry before storage or milling. Corn-drying kilns of this type are found widely across early medieval Ireland, where the damp climate made drying grain before grinding an essential step rather than an optional one. Finding fifteen of them together, some associated with additional structural remains, points to something more organised than a single farmstead: a dedicated processing centre, perhaps serving a wider community.

The site sits at around 140 metres above sea level on ground that drops sharply to a fast-flowing stream to the north and looks out over marshy terrain to the north-east and east, a setting that would have made the elevated, well-drained position genuinely useful. The kilns represent the earliest phase of activity identified here. In a subsequent phase, deep and wide ditches were dug to enclose parts of the site, and this is where the story becomes harder to read. The ditch construction did not follow the positions of the kilns with any care, and many kilns were cut through or truncated in the process. Whether the cereal-processing operation was still active when the enclosure was built, or had already been abandoned, is not clear. What is clear is that the relationship between the kilns and the enclosing ditches is not accidental: the kilns cluster within and at the edges of what became the enclosed area, with none found either in the central zone or outside the enclosure altogether. A still later phase added a massive ditch forming a subrectangular moated site, a type of enclosed settlement associated in Ireland with the medieval period, typically defined by a water-filled or waterlogged ditch around a raised central platform. The excavation was carried out in 2007 by Tori McMorran of Eachtra Archaeological Projects, as part of the large-scale road scheme along the N7 between Castletown and Nenagh.