The collapse is the only reason the souterrain was recorded at all. A souterrain is a deliberately constructed underground passage or chamber, typically built during the early medieval period in Ireland and associated with nearby settlement enclosures. They were used for storage, refuge, or both, and they were built to be invisible from above. This one remained exactly that for perhaps a thousand years, until the earth above it finally failed.

The souterrain lies roughly 120 metres south-east of a ringfort, which is the kind of association that makes immediate sense to archaeologists. Ringforts, the circular earthen or stone enclosures that dot the Irish countryside in their thousands, were the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Souterrains were commonly dug in connection with them, their entrances often concealed within the interior of the enclosure. The Banteer example sits at a distance from its ringfort, but still clearly within its orbit. A second possible souterrain has been identified approximately 60 metres to the west, suggesting that what survives of this landscape may be only a fragment of a more complex underground network once associated with the settlement above.