These are clochans, the beehive-shaped or roughly corbelled stone cells associated with early Irish monasticism, and at least four of them survive here in varying states of ruin. Three appear to have been joined together, their walls merging into a single mass of tumbled stone. The westernmost hut, roughly D-shaped in plan, still stands to about a metre in height, its entrance facing west, its interior measuring just 1.8 by 1.4 metres. That is a very small space, barely enough for one person to sleep.

The place is known as Fohernamanagh, or Fothair na Manach in Irish, a name that translates roughly as the terrace or sloping land of the monks. The association with monasticism goes further than the name. Tradition holds that St. Brendan, the sixth-century navigator whose legendary sea voyage inspired one of the great medieval travel narratives, both founded a monastery here and spent time in the valley before setting out on that journey. Whether or not those claims have any historical basis, the location itself lends them a certain plausibility. Even by the austere standards of early Irish monks, who had a particular fondness for remote and inhospitable places, this valley would have offered considerable seclusion. Yet the site is not purely ancient. Despite its difficulty of access, the valley was reportedly home to three or four families at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it remains uncertain how much of what is visible today reflects early monastic construction and how much results from that more recent occupation.