Excavation in 2007 revealed something considerably more deliberate: a substantial structure, roughly ten metres north to south and at least eight metres east to west, built from drystone walling and internally divided into a number of separate compartments. The entrance faced south, and the walls appear to have been designed to carry sill-beams, a construction technique in which horizontal timbers rest directly on a low stone foundation rather than being set into the ground, helping to resist decay. Whatever this building was, it was not a casual or temporary arrangement.

The site sits approximately sixty metres west-north-west of a medieval church on the same ridge, a proximity that may or may not be coincidental. Carnfree itself is a place of some historical weight in the Irish midlands, associated with the inauguration of the kings of Connacht. The small finds recovered during the 2007 excavation, referenced in a report by Shanahan published in 2009, point to activity somewhere between the tenth and twelfth centuries. That window places the structure in a period of considerable political and ecclesiastical flux in Connacht, when the landscape around sites like this was being actively shaped and contested. Whether the building had a secular or religious function, or something harder to categorise by modern terms, the excavation stopped short of settling the question.