The remains measure approximately five metres across in both directions, enclosed by a low stone bank no more than half a metre high. That modest kerb of field-grey stone is essentially all that remains above ground of what was once someone's dwelling.

A cashel is a type of early medieval stone-walled enclosure, broadly equivalent in function to an earthen ringfort, used to define and protect a farmstead or small settlement. The positioning of this hut site is telling: built directly against the interior of the cashel's perimeter wall on the eastern side, the structure borrowed that boundary as part of its own fabric. This was a practical arrangement common in early Irish settlement, where the enclosure wall itself served as a ready-made rear or side wall for a domestic building. The overall cashel complex at Ballyelly is recorded separately, and this smaller structure appears to have been a subordinate element within it, one household space within what may have been a larger agricultural or family compound.