The structure is a souterrain, an underground chamber or tunnel typically constructed during the early medieval period in Ireland, usually from dry-stone walling and roofed with large slabs. They served various purposes, most likely as places of refuge, cool storage for foodstuffs, or concealed escape routes associated with nearby settlement sites. What makes this particular example quietly notable is not what survives, but what has effectively vanished; the entrance is no longer visible, leaving the monument as a kind of archaeological rumour rather than a legible feature in the landscape.

The site was recorded by O'Connell during an Office of Public Works survey in 1937, at which point the souterrain was already described as small and disturbed. That word, disturbed, carries a good deal of weight in archaeological shorthand; it suggests the original fabric had been interfered with, whether through later agricultural activity, deliberate stone robbing, or simple collapse over the centuries. The record was later included in A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan's survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press in 1996, which catalogued the remarkable density of monuments across this part of south Kerry. Despite its fragmentary condition, the site has been afforded legal protection under the National Monuments Acts, with a preservation order in place since 1938, suggesting it was recognised early on as something worth preserving even in its diminished state.