When archaeologists opened test trenches across the proposed building plot in 1999, they found, just below the topsoil, a layer of charcoal-rich soil bearing clear evidence of ironworking. That kind of deposit, dark, dense, and laced with the residue of high-temperature burning, is the signature left by smiths or smelters working iron, a process that requires sustained, intense heat and leaves distinctive waste material behind in the ground for centuries.

The site sits immediately beside an ecclesiastical enclosure at Ballymaghroe, which contains the ruins of a church and an 18th-century graveyard. The proximity is suggestive. Metalworking was frequently associated with early ecclesiastical settlements in Ireland, where craftsmen would have worked under the patronage or protection of a monastic community, producing tools, fittings, and other ironwork. The charcoal-rich layer identified in the south-east trench ran to at least 4 metres in length and 4 metres in diameter when traced northward into a second trench, and a further similar feature was found to the north of it. The excavation was carried out under licence 99E0302, and the two features together suggest a working area of some substance rather than an isolated deposit.

Rather than disturb the features through full excavation, the archaeologists and the landowner agreed to shift the proposed house 15 metres to the south, leaving the ironworking deposits undisturbed beneath the ground. The church ruins and graveyard beside which they lie remain, and the metalworking evidence, unexcavated, sits quietly in the field, preserved largely because a planning process briefly required someone to look.