They called them Na Clocháin Gheala, a phrase recorded by Robin Flower in 1944, and while some of the structures scattered across this remote end of the island are fairly mundane sheep-folds and shelters, at least fourteen have been identified as hut sites or possible hut sites. That distinction matters. These are not the remains of the famous village community evacuated in 1953; they belong to an older, quieter layer of human use, sitting largely unnoticed at the far edge of one of Ireland's most written-about islands.

The northernmost group of these huts occupies an area roughly fifty metres square and contains five distinct structures. The forms vary considerably even within that small patch of ground. One is simply a terrace cut into the hillslope with faint traces of drystone walling. Another is a subrectangular hollow, 11.3 by 6 metres, defined on its downslope side by a low stony bank. A third is oval, just over three metres across, with a short surviving section of inner wall face still standing to about half a metre. Most striking of the group is a circular corbelled hut, corbelling being a technique where stones are laid in overlapping courses to form a domed or vaulted roof without mortar. That structure is three metres in diameter and still stands to a height of one metre. Outside its wall, a rectangular hollow may indicate the former presence of a subterranean passage, a souterrain, of the kind sometimes associated with early medieval settlement. A fifth structure nearby survives only in fragmentary form, with a second possible foundation immediately to its south-south-east.