The structure is D-shaped, measuring roughly three by three and a half metres, small enough that it would have sheltered one person, perhaps two, with very little room to spare. It sits at Baile na hAbha, a placename that translates from the Irish as something close to "townland of the river", and the remains are easy to overlook, as the foundations have subsided to little more than a grassy outline against the hillside.

Structures of this kind are scattered across the Dingle Peninsula and the broader landscape of early medieval Ireland. They are generally associated with solitary occupation, whether by farmers tending upland pasture during the summer months in a practice known as booleying, or by hermits and ascetics drawn to the margins of the inhabited world. Brandon Mountain itself has a long association with St Brendan, and the western slopes of the range preserve numerous traces of early Christian activity alongside more utilitarian remains. The hut at Baile na hAbha was recorded as part of the comprehensive Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey published by J. Cuppage in 1986, a landmark survey of the Dingle Peninsula that brought together an enormous body of field evidence for the area's prehistoric and early historic past.