It is a souterrain, a type of structure built during the early medieval period, typically consisting of one or more dry-stone chambers or tunnels set into the earth. Souterrains are found across Ireland in considerable numbers, and their precise purposes remain a matter of some debate among archaeologists. Cold storage, refuge during raids, and simple concealment of valuables have all been proposed, and in many cases the answer was probably a combination of all three.

The place name Bawnaskehy may itself carry a trace of the site's wider context. "Bawn" in Irish townland names often derives from "bábhún", referring to an enclosure or fortified cattle yard, the kind of defended space commonly associated with early medieval settlement. Whether a settlement of that kind once existed alongside this souterrain is not established in available sources, but the pairing of name and monument type is a quietly suggestive one. Kerry has a significant concentration of souterrains, many of them associated with ringforts, and the county's landscape of dispersed early medieval farmsteads makes the existence of such a feature here entirely unremarkable in historical terms, even if its precise details remain to be fully documented.