The discovery pushes back against any notion of early Irish monasteries as purely spiritual retreats, reminding us that these enclosures were, among other things, working settlements with practical industrial needs.

During excavations carried out between 1970 and 1972, a pit in this area yielded fragments of furnace-bottom alongside quantities of clinker and bloom. Clinker is the stony waste that accumulates during iron smelting, while bloom refers to the raw spongy mass of iron produced in a furnace before it is worked into usable metal. Together, these materials are the signature residues of early iron production, and their presence within the ecclesiastical enclosure surrounding St. Brigid's Church suggests that metalworking was carried out in close proximity to, if not directly in support of, the monastic community on the island. The finds are documented by de Paor and place the activity firmly within a monastic industrial context that would not have been unusual for early medieval Ireland, where monasteries often housed craftsmen alongside clergy.