The structure is defined by a curving drystone wall, the kind built without mortar by laying stones carefully against one another, measuring roughly 6.7 metres east to west, with a straight east side running nearly 5.8 metres. The wall itself, now partially collapsed, still stands to around 0.6 metres in height, and its lower courses protrude directly from the bog surface, as though the ground has been slowly rising around it for centuries. A narrow entrance, just 0.55 metres wide, opens at the southeast, and the interior is uneven underfoot, scattered with rubble from whatever once stood here.

Hut sites of this kind appear across upland Ireland, representing some of the more modest evidence of past habitation or seasonal use of the landscape. They are difficult to date without excavation, and their function varies: some were permanent dwellings, others temporary shelters used during the summer grazing season, a practice known in Ireland as booleying. At Gortloughra, the picture is complicated slightly by the surrounding field boundaries that press in against the hut at the south, west, and north, suggesting this small structure existed within, or perhaps gave rise to, a wider pattern of land management on the hillside. Around 30 metres to the northeast, a second hut site survives, which raises the possibility that this was never an entirely solitary place.