It is neither. The circular drystone foundation, roughly three and a half metres across and standing about a metre high, is what survives of a hut site, the remains of a small roofed structure built without mortar, its walls relying entirely on the careful fitting of stone against stone.

Brandon Mountain, known in Irish as Cnoc Bréanainn, carries an exceptional concentration of early activity, much of it associated with the early Christian period and with the cult of St Brendan, after whom the mountain is named. The Dingle Peninsula as a whole is one of the most archaeologically dense landscapes in Ireland, and the 1986 survey by J. Cuppage documented this particular site among hundreds of others scattered across the peninsula. Hut sites of this type are hard to date without excavation, but comparable structures on Irish hillsides are often associated with seasonal or religious use, ranging from early medieval hermitage activity to the transhumance practice of booleying, where people moved livestock to upland grazing in summer months and sheltered nearby in simple temporary structures.

The site sits in working pasture, and the mountain itself is a well-known destination for walkers and pilgrims following the Saint's Road, an ancient route to the summit. Anyone moving through the area on foot and paying attention to the ground rather than the horizon may notice the ring of stones without quite knowing what they are looking at, which is, in a way, the point.