The circle measures approximately three metres in diameter, which gives a sense of just how compact the original structure would have been, a single-roomed shelter in the most literal sense. The problem for anyone hoping to read it clearly is that stones are scattered widely across the area, blurring the outline and making it difficult to trace where the wall ends and the general disorder of the ground begins.

This kind of stone hut site represents one of the more elusive categories of early settlement in Ireland. Unlike the more substantial remains of a cashel or ringfort, a hut site of this scale may have served as a temporary or seasonal shelter, perhaps for a herder moving cattle to upland grazing, perhaps for something else entirely. The archaeological record rarely answers those questions with confidence. What makes the Barrees site particularly interesting is that a second possible hut site lies only a metre away, raising the possibility that whatever activity happened here was not solitary. Two such structures in such close proximity suggests at minimum that someone found this spot worth returning to, or worth sharing.