A clochan, the Irish word for a dry-stone beehive hut of the kind built by early Christian monks and farmers across the western seaboard, once stood here. By the time anyone thought to record it formally, it was already close to gone.

The archaeologist R. A. S. Macalister visited in 1899 and noted a much-dilapidated clochaun in the area, which is as close to a physical description as the record offers. Clochans were built without mortar, their corbelled stones angled inward course by course until they met at a single capstone, creating a surprisingly watertight interior. They are among the most ancient building forms still visible in the Irish landscape, and examples survive in better condition elsewhere on the peninsula, but the one at Gleann Fán evidently did not fare as well. Macalister's note is less a discovery than a farewell.