This style of dry-stone building, in which carefully layered stones are offset inward with each course until they meet at the top without the use of mortar, is associated with early Christian monastic settlements along Ireland's Atlantic edge. What survives here is partial at best: one hut retains some standing fabric, while the other two have fallen, their presence now suggested only by low, grass-covered swellings in the ground.

The three clochans were recorded individually on both the 1838 and 1921 Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, where they were named Torthigh beg, Torthigh more, and Torthigh East, a set of names that hints at a recognised distinction between them even when cartographers were simply noting what local knowledge had long preserved. That all three appeared on maps nearly a century apart suggests the structures, or at least their ruins, remained visible landmarks across that period. The complex is now a National Monument in state ownership, listed as no. 99, which places it under legal protection as part of Ireland's built heritage.