The find at Rosepark complicated the usual picture of these structures as isolated, occasional features tucked into the edges of early medieval farmsteads.

Souterrains are stone-built underground passages and chambers, constructed during the early medieval period in Ireland and typically associated with ringforts or enclosed settlement sites. They were likely used for cool storage and possibly as places of refuge. At Rosepark, the excavation was prompted by aerial photography that had already identified a complex of curvilinear and linear features on the site, recorded under the monument reference DU005-057008. When the ground was opened, seven souterrains came to light in the south-west and south-east quadrants of the complex, with several other anomalies possibly representing the collapsed remains of further examples. Each souterrain consisted of narrow passages roofed with flat stone lintels leading into one or two circular chambers. Where the construction was sufficiently intact to study, the chambers measured between 2.3 and 3 metres in diameter and stood between 1 and 2 metres in height, built using corbelling, a technique in which courses of stone are laid with each course projecting slightly inward until the roof closes over without the need for a keystone. Crucially, some of the souterrains were found cutting into the fill of earlier ditches, which placed them later in date than the enclosure system they sat within, suggesting the underground network was a secondary addition to an already-established settlement (Carroll 2008, 72).

The site itself is no longer accessible in any meaningful sense, having been excavated as part of a pre-development process, meaning the souterrains were recorded and the ground subsequently built over. What survives is the archaeological record rather than any visible monument. For anyone interested in how such sites are documented before they disappear, the excavation report compiled by Carroll and the record compiled by Geraldine Stout offer the most direct route into the detail of what was found here.