They are found across Ireland in their hundreds, occasionally turning up beneath farmyards or inside the footprint of a ringfort, and they have a habit of going unnoticed for centuries until a plough catches an edge or a field drains oddly after heavy rain.

The souterrain at Ballycally is recorded as a monument, which tells us it has been formally identified and logged, but the documentary record available at present is thin. No excavation reports, no detailed measurements, no associated finds have made their way into the public domain in any accessible form. What can be said is that Clare has its share of these structures, and that most Irish souterrains date to somewhere between the seventh and twelfth centuries, built by farming communities who lived above ground in raths or cashels and used the passages below for practical rather than ceremonial purposes. The underground environment kept temperatures steady, which suited the storage of dairy produce and grain, and a narrow entrance could slow an unwelcome visitor considerably.