A clochaun is a dry-stone corbelled hut, built without mortar by laying successive rings of stone so that each course projects slightly inward until the structure closes at the top, a technique that requires no roof timber and can produce a remarkably durable interior space. These structures are associated with early medieval monastic and agricultural life in Ireland, and the Dingle Peninsula has one of the densest concentrations of them anywhere in the country, partly a consequence of the peninsula's position as a centre of early Christian activity and partly because the stone-rich landscape made the building method practical.

The record of this particular example appears in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey compiled by J. Cuppage, a comprehensive catalogue of the antiquities of the Dingle Peninsula published by Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne in Ballyferriter. Beyond its circular form and its presence on OS maps, the available detail is sparse, which is itself telling. Many clocháns on the peninsula survive as little more than collapsed ringlets of stone in rough ground, easy to overlook unless you already know what a circular scatter of corbelled masonry suggests about the people who once sheltered or prayed within it.