A promontory fort uses the natural geography of a headland, defended on the landward side by ditches or banks, with the sea doing the rest of the work. What makes these particular huts unusual is not their form but their probable timing: rather than belonging to the prehistoric or early medieval phases one might expect from such a site, they appear to be late sixteenth-century in origin.

The four structures are thought to date to 1579 or 1580, a period when the fort itself was converted for use as a military fortification. That moment places them squarely within the upheaval of the Desmond Rebellions, a series of conflicts in Munster between Hiberno-Norman lords and the Elizabethan administration. The repurposing of an ancient coastal fort as a working garrison would have required some form of shelter for those occupying it, and these hut remains are likely what that looked like on the ground. The site and its plan were documented by Judith Cuppage in her 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, which remains a key reference for the area's field monuments.