The collapse, modest enough to go unnoticed by most passers-by, is thought to mark the position of a souterrain chamber whose roof finally gave out after centuries of holding on underground. A souterrain is a man-made underground passage or chamber, typically constructed during the early medieval period in Ireland using stone-lined walls and a corbelled or lintelled roof; they are found beneath or near settlement sites and are generally interpreted as places of storage, refuge, or both.

The hollow sits in what is now ordinary pasture at Conva, Co. Cork, but the broader landscape around it suggests a more structured past. Roughly 350 metres to the north-west lies a related cluster of archaeological features, three enclosures and a group of pits, which together point to a period of organised activity in this part of the countryside. Enclosures of this kind are often associated with early medieval farmsteads, the kind of enclosed agricultural settlements that once defined the rural landscape of Munster. The souterrain, if that is indeed what lies beneath the hollow, would fit naturally into such a setting, tucked underground beside or within a farmstead whose surface traces have long since faded into the field system around them.