The structure is rectangular, measuring about 6.7 metres north to south and 15 metres east to west, and what survives of it tells a slightly uneven story: the eastern end retains more substantial wall-footings, with a base width of 3.6 metres tapering to 1.8 metres at the crest, while the western end has subsided into little more than a low scarp. A gap of around 1.2 metres in the northern wall is most likely where the entrance once stood. The place has panoramic views in every direction, which raises the question of whether that elevation was chosen for practical reasons, spiritual ones, or simply because the rock outcrop was already there.

Aerial photographs taken in 1968 revealed earthworks across the wider area that point to a medieval or post-medieval settlement clustered around the neighbouring church at Ballintogher. This house is just one piece of a larger, only partially legible picture. Wall-footings from two other possible house sites have been identified to the north and west of the church, along with a large enclosure in the same area and a smaller one immediately to the church's northwest. Whether these structures belonged to a farming community, a monastic precinct, or some combination of both remains genuinely uncertain. The date is indeterminate, the function is probable rather than confirmed, and that unresolved quality is part of what makes the site interesting.

The remains are low and unassuming at ground level, the kind of earthworks that reward a slow walk and a willingness to read the landscape in terms of subtle changes in height and texture. The grass-covered footings blend easily into the surrounding upland terrain, and the scarp at the western end is so slight, at just nine centimetres above the exterior ground surface, that it would be easy to walk past without registering it as anything structural at all.