Most survive as little more than a ring of tumbled stone, one or two courses high, yet the grouping itself is what catches the attention. This is not a lone shepherd's shelter or a solitary ruin but a cluster, occupying a stretch of ground some forty metres across, east to west, in open upland terrain between the mountains of Coomacarrea and Meenteog.

Hut sites of this kind are circular or sub-circular dry-stone structures, the remains of simple roofed shelters used across many centuries in Ireland, sometimes associated with seasonal grazing, sometimes with earlier settlement. At Tuar An Chladáin, the eight huts vary considerably in size, with diameters ranging from two to six metres, suggesting they may not all have served the same purpose or been built at exactly the same time. The northernmost hut is the best preserved of the group, retaining enough of its original fabric to give a clearer sense of the structure's original form. The others, ranged below it on the terraced ledge, have fared less well against the weather and the slow collapse of unmortared stone. The site was documented as part of a comprehensive archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996, which drew together a remarkable body of field evidence from this particularly archaeology-rich corner of south Kerry.

The terrain here is open mountain, with no shelter from the Atlantic weather that sweeps in across the peninsula, and the approach would require crossing rough upland ground. The southward aspect of the slope means the site catches what light there is, and on a clear day the Owroe valley below provides considerable orientation. The best-preserved hut to the north of the cluster repays the closest attention, offering the most complete sense of the original walling.