Archaeologists read it differently. What survives, heavily deteriorated, is most likely the remains of a circular hut, the kind of simple dry-stone dwelling that once dotted the Irish landscape in considerable numbers, particularly along the western seaboard where the tradition of building in stone persisted long after it had faded elsewhere.

The gap between local memory and archaeological classification is not unusual in rural Kerry, where the word "fort" tends to attach itself to any old circular earthwork or enclosure, including ring forts, which were enclosed farmsteads rather than military structures. Here, though, the evidence points not to an enclosure of that kind but to a roofed habitation, circular in plan, of the sort that would have sheltered a family or served as a seasonal shelter. The site appears in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey compiled by J. Cuppage as part of the Corca Dhuibhne survey, a detailed regional study of the peninsula's exceptionally dense concentration of early remains.