The building retains the composed, symmetrical face of its original purpose: a three-bay entrance front to the south, sash windows, a central rectangular doorway, and a hipped roof punctuated by two off-centre chimneys. It is the kind of structure designed to project a quiet authority rather than domestic comfort.

By 1842, when the Ordnance Survey produced its six-inch map of the area, the building was already recorded in its characteristic L-shaped plan and labelled plainly as a Police Barrack. That designation places it within the wider network of constabulary outposts that were established across rural Ireland in the decades following the formation of the Irish Constabulary in 1822, when the British administration moved to consolidate policing across the country through a system of small, locally garrisoned stations. The L-shaped footprint visible on that early map matches what survives today, with a one-storey addition to the rear on the east side completing the plan. A more recent addition has also been made to the east elevation, reflecting the building's long subsequent life as a private residence.

The transition from police barrack to family home is one that played out at dozens of similar buildings across Ireland, many of them now so thoroughly absorbed into the everyday landscape that their original function goes entirely unnoticed. At Ballymagooly, the architecture itself quietly preserves the record.