These are clochans, the dry-stone beehive or rounded huts associated with early Irish monasticism, and three of them survive here in varying states of preservation, each with a slightly different plan, as though recording different moments or purposes in the life of a small religious community.

The three structures occupy the south-eastern end of the island, in the broader company of early ecclesiastical remains including an oratory. The first, set into the hillslope roughly 75 metres north-east of that oratory, is subcircular in plan, measuring approximately 6.6 metres by 5.8 metres. Immediately adjacent to it sits a second, larger oval structure, 12 metres by 5 metres, which is notably elongated compared to the classic clochan form. A third example lies a further 50 metres to the north-east; this one is square in plan, roughly 5.5 metres on each side, and appears to share a similar construction technique with its neighbours. The variation in shape across the three is itself quietly interesting: the shift from subcircular to oval to square suggests either different building traditions or different functional needs within the same small settlement. Francis Joseph Bigger noted the site in 1896, and the grouping has been understood since then as part of the wider monastic complex for which St Macdara's Island is known.