Beinn Mhanach derived its name from a monastery that once lay at its foot, and which was used by clan MacGregor when travelling between Glen Lyon and their burial ground in Glen Orchy. No trace of the monastery remains today. The poet Duncan Ban MacIntyre, whose most well-known poem Moladh Beinn Dòbhrain celebrated nearby Beinn Dorain, lived for a number of years in a cottage, now a ruin and used as a sheep fank, at Ais-an-t-Sidhean at the head of Auch Gleann.