They are corbelled drystone foundations, meaning their walls were constructed by layering flat stones so that each course slightly overhangs the one below, gradually closing toward a roof. The group is modest in scale, ranging from as little as 1.65 by 1.9 metres across to around 3.2 metres in diameter, and their purpose was never grand.

Archaeologists working on the Dingle Peninsula survey, documented by J. Cuppage in 1986, concluded that at least two of the structures were likely booley huts. Booleying was the practice of moving livestock to upland pastures during summer months, a form of transhumance common across Ireland well into the early modern period, with herders sometimes sleeping rough in temporary shelters near their animals. The remaining structures at Baile Ristín were more probably animal pens or simple enclosures rather than human habitations. The distinction matters, because it suggests this was a working upland station, a place of seasonal activity rather than permanent settlement, occupied and abandoned with the rhythm of the grazing calendar. The site sits within the Corca Dhuibhne region, the Irish-speaking heartland of the Dingle Peninsula, where the density of ancient field systems, enclosures, and ecclesiastical remains reflects centuries of intensive, layered use of the land.