That absence is itself a small puzzle. The structure is substantial enough, a near-square arrangement measuring thirteen metres north to south and thirteen and a half metres east to west, enclosed by a drystone wall a metre high and a metre wide. Drystone construction, which relies entirely on the careful stacking of unmortared stone, can be deceptively durable, and this wall has clearly held its general form across a long period. Two gaps, each roughly two metres across, have collapsed in the east and west walls, suggesting the possibility of original entrances, though whether these openings were always intentional or are simply the result of time and weather is difficult to say without further investigation.

The Iveragh Peninsula, on which Broaghnabinnia sits, is one of the more archaeologically dense parts of Ireland, and enclosures of this kind can belong to a wide range of periods and functions, from early medieval farmsteads to stock enclosures of much more recent date. The almost square plan and the thickness of the wall are worth noting; many field boundaries in Kerry are considerably slighter. Its location on a lower mountain foothill rather than in more productive lowland ground raises quiet questions about what it was built to contain or exclude, and by whom.