The remains belong to a long rectangular house, notable for having opposing entrances set into its side-walls rather than the more typical single doorway in a gable end. Attached to the north-east side-wall is the outline of a roughly square annex, added or built alongside the main structure. What makes the arrangement particularly curious is that both the house and its annex were built directly over a causeway, the prepared stone crossing that would once have connected or defined movement across part of the island.

The Iveragh Peninsula, of which Church Island forms a small part, has a layered archaeological landscape stretching from early medieval monasticism through to post-medieval rural settlement. A house of 18th or 19th century date on a small island suggests a community, or at least a family, making deliberate use of a place already marked by older structures and routes. Building over the causeway implies either that it had fallen out of use by then, or that the practical need for shelter was simply more pressing than preserving the line of an earlier path. The opposing doorways in the side-walls are a relatively common feature in vernacular Irish houses of this period, sometimes described as a "street" plan, allowing a through-draught and easy movement of animals and people across the width of the building. That such a plan was employed here, on a small island, speaks to a familiarity with mainland building conventions even in a fairly remote setting.