The structure is modest even by the standards of early Irish habitation: just 3.4 metres from northwest to southeast and 2.3 metres across, its drystone walls, built without mortar, have long since collapsed to low, grassy ridges no more than 0.75 metres high. What lingers is the quiet intelligence of the construction. The builder did not fight the hillside but worked with it, cutting the southern end of the floor into the upslope while leaving the northern end raised, the result being a level interior despite the gradient beneath it.

This kind of small drystone hut site is found widely across the upland landscapes of Kerry and the west of Ireland, and can be difficult to date without excavation. Some belong to seasonal farming traditions, used by herders moving cattle to summer pasture in a practice known as booleying. Others are older still, associated with pre-medieval or early medieval settlement in terrain that was once more intensively farmed than it appears today. The Crossderry example sits in a cluster, with a second hut site of similar character located roughly 40 metres to the northwest, suggesting that whatever activity took place here was not entirely solitary.