These structures, constructed without mortar and roofed with large flat stones, were a feature of Irish rural settlement from roughly the seventh to the twelfth centuries. Their precise purposes are still debated, but they are generally understood to have served as places of refuge, cool storage for foodstuffs, or both. The fact that one exists at Cartron is itself a quiet piece of information, a reminder that the land here has a longer biography than its current surface suggests.

Beyond the fact of its existence and its location, little can be said with confidence about this particular souterrain. No published detail is currently available about its dimensions, its condition, when it was first recorded, or the circumstances of its discovery. Cartron, as a place name, derives from the Irish "ceathrú", meaning a quarter, a unit of land division used in Connacht during the medieval and early modern periods. That a souterrain should be associated with such a settlement unit is not surprising, as these underground features are frequently found in areas with evidence of early Christian-era farming activity, often close to ringforts or ecclesiastical sites, though no such association can be confirmed here from the available record.