During excavation, archaeologists uncovered a series of pits, stakeholes, and a roughly keyhole-shaped area packed with baked clay at Priestsnewtown. The excavator proposed that what had been exposed was the remains of a corn-drying kiln, one of the more workaday features of early Irish rural life.

Corn-drying kilns were a practical necessity in Ireland's damp climate. Before grain could be milled or stored, it needed to be dried, and the keyhole or figure-of-eight shape was a common design: a long flue channel feeding into a bowl-shaped drying chamber, with heat drawn through from a fire at one end. The baked clay lining at Priestsnewtown fits this pattern well, though the excavator's language remained cautious, describing the find as a possible rather than confirmed example. The discovery was recorded under Excavation Licence 04E0402 and published by Wiggins in 2007, situating it within the broader catalogue of infrastructure-related archaeological finds that accumulated during Ireland's rapid road-building programmes of the early 2000s. Such rescue excavations, carried out against the clock ahead of construction deadlines, have produced some of the more unexpected additions to the country's archaeological record.