The structure is modest by any measure, roughly three metres across, standing just over a metre high, with walls about 1.2 metres thick. What gives it a particular kind of quiet interest is the way it has been quietly repurposed: at some point since it fell out of whatever original use it served, someone built a sheep-shelter inside it, fitting a later practical need into the bones of an older one.

Drystone construction, which uses no mortar and relies entirely on the careful selection and placement of stone, is found across the Dingle Peninsula in various forms, from field walls to the more elaborate corbelled cells associated with early medieval monastic life. This hut at Baile An Tsléibhe is a simpler, more ambiguous structure; its age and original purpose are not recorded. It appears in the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey compiled by J. Cuppage in 1986, a landmark survey of the peninsula that catalogued an extraordinary density of sites across this part of west Kerry. The name Baile An Tsléibhe translates roughly from Irish as "townland of the mountain", which describes the setting plainly enough.