The site at Canburrin consists of a complex of four open-ended fields, and in the lowest of these, six structures survive, two of which may have served as animal shelters. The hut itself is roughly circular in plan, measuring 4.2 metres by 3.4 metres, with walls still standing to 1.4 metres in height and 0.8 metres thick. What makes it particularly legible, even now, is the entrance passage facing east: a row of orthostats, meaning upright standing stones set on end, defines a passage 0.8 metres wide, while further uprights flank the inner wall-face. It is a small space, clearly organised, and the deliberate placement of those stones gives the whole structure an air of considered construction rather than improvised shelter.

The site was documented by archaeologists Aidan O'Sullivan and Jerry Sheehan as part of their comprehensive survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press in 1996. That survey recorded the hut alongside the wider field system it belongs to, suggesting this was a working agricultural landscape rather than an isolated dwelling. The relationship between the hut and the field wall to its north, which it actually abuts, implies the two were either contemporary or that the hut was inserted into an already-established boundary. Without excavation it is difficult to date the site precisely, but this type of drystone corbelled or walled hut, with its orthostat-lined entrance, is a form seen repeatedly across Kerry's upland and coastal margins, associated broadly with early medieval or later pastoral activity.