One of them measures just 5.8 metres by 5.5 metres, roughly the footprint of a large garden shed, and is classified as a hut site, the kind of modest, often dry-stone structure that would once have sheltered a person or small group for seasonal or agricultural purposes. That such a slight and domestic thing has survived at all, even in ruined and vegetated form, is part of what makes it worth knowing about.

The site at Macha Ghrianáin is recorded alongside a second adjoining enclosure, the two together forming a pair of overgrown features in the Kerry terrain. The archaeological inventory compiled by O'Sullivan and Sheehan, covering south-west Kerry, catalogues this as one of several hundred such sites in the region, each representing a fragment of everyday life from periods when this corner of Munster was more densely and actively settled than its present quiet might suggest. Hut sites of this type are generally associated with transhumance, the seasonal movement of people and livestock to upland grazing, or with small-scale habitation tied to land use rather than permanent settlement. The name Macha Ghrianáin itself is suggestive: macha typically refers to a milking place or cattle ground, while ghrianáin can denote a sunny spot or a type of elevated, light-filled dwelling, which together paint a picture of a place valued for its pastoral and perhaps more than purely practical qualities.