Three test trenches were manually excavated in 2006 approximately 35m to the east of St Mary's Church, Macosquin, believed to be the site of the Cistercian abbey of Clarus Föns. A late medieval ditch and stone wall were found running approximately north-east/south-west. These appeared to match closely a ditch excavated to the south of the church in 1980. No traces of a cloister, of medieval masonry or of the occupation to be expected at a monastic site were uncovered, leading to the speculation that either the monastic cloister was located north of the church or that the existing St Mary's Church is a capella ante portas, a church for the laity located at the edge of or outside the monastery, and that the main monastic church and cloister lay some 200m to the south at the site of the Merchant Tailors'fortified house, now the Church of Ireland rectory.