A clochan, the beehive-shaped dry-stone hut associated with early Christian monastic life in Ireland, would ordinarily be expected to contain the traces of prayer, sleep, or study. This one, designated Clochaun G, contained something altogether different: the debris of iron-smelting, including a furnace pit and the residue of other metallurgical processes.

The structure sits in the north-eastern part of the An Riasc complex, about 1.25 kilometres east of Ballyferriter on one of the higher points of the townland, with open views northward over Smerwick Harbour. What survives today is only the basal foundation course, but it is enough to establish the building's form: a sub-circular plan with an internal diameter of roughly 2.75 metres and walls averaging 0.9 metres thick, with a narrow entrance gap to the south-west. The stonework was apparently well-faced, and the base course was built to tie in with the adjacent enclosure wall to the north-east, suggesting deliberate integration into the wider monastic layout. These details were recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, published by Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne. The presence of industrial metalworking within a structure of this kind is unusual; early monastic sites are sometimes associated with craft production, but finding the concentrated evidence of a furnace pit inside a single clochan adds a specific, material dimension to what monastic self-sufficiency could actually look like.