At a roughly circular ringfort on the Dingle Peninsula, the Irish place-name does much of the archaeological work: Clochán na nUamhan, which translates broadly as the stone dwelling of the caves, with uamhain meaning cave. That linguistic clue is, for the moment, the principal reason to suspect that this site conceals a souterrain, an artificially constructed underground passage or chamber typically built during the early medieval period in Ireland, often used for storage, refuge, or both.

The ringfort sits in the low-lying crescent of land that curves around Smerwick Harbour on the Dingle Peninsula, roughly a hundred metres north of the early ecclesiastical site at Reask, a monastic enclosure known for its carved stone slabs and the visible remains of early Christian activity. The proximity of the two sites is worth noting: ringforts and early ecclesiastical enclosures frequently appear in close relation across the Irish landscape, suggesting communities that were spatially and socially intertwined. The possible souterrain here was recorded by Cuppage in 1986, who flagged the place-name as the primary indicator of a subterranean feature, without confirming its physical presence.