The problem is that nobody can currently verify it. The ringfort within which it supposedly lies is so thoroughly reclaimed by vegetation that the interior is simply inaccessible, leaving the souterrain in an unusual state of limbo, known but unconfirmed, present in local memory but absent from any physical record.

Ringforts, the circular enclosed settlements that dot the Irish countryside in their thousands, were in use roughly from the early centuries AD through to the Norman period, and many contain souterrains that served as storage spaces, refuges, or escape routes. In Ballyduff, the ringfort in question sits as an overgrown mass, its earthworks presumably still intact beneath the woodland that has overtaken it. The souterrain, if it exists, may be equally well preserved, sealed off not by deliberate concealment but simply by the slow, indifferent work of encroaching scrub.