It is a clochan, a type of dry-stone beehive hut built without mortar, relying entirely on the careful corbelling of flat stones to hold a domed or rounded roof together. This particular example is circular and modest in scale, measuring roughly three metres in diameter, which would have made it a tight but functional shelter. What makes it quietly interesting is the possibility of a subsidiary chamber lying to its east, suggesting the structure may not have been as simple as its footprint implies.

R. A. S. Macalister noted the site in 1899, and it was later recorded in the Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey compiled by J. Cuppage and published in 1986 under the title 'Corca Dhuibhne'. Clochans of this type are associated with early medieval monastic and pastoral life in Ireland, particularly along the Atlantic seaboard of Munster, where the Dingle Peninsula has one of the densest concentrations of early Christian archaeology in the country. The beehive form appears across this coastline in varying states of preservation, some restored, many partial, a few still remarkably intact. The Gleann Fán example belongs to this broader pattern of small, functional stone architecture that served the needs of hermits, pilgrims, or seasonal farmers working the upland margins.