The arrangement has been tentatively identified as a possible souterrain, one of those underground stone-lined passages or chambers that were built, typically during the early medieval period, beneath or beside ringforts across Ireland. Their precise purposes are still debated, but they are generally thought to have served as places of refuge, cold storage, or both. What makes the Cloonanass example quietly interesting is its uncertainty: this is not a confirmed, excavated chamber but a surface signal, a cluster of stone that hints at something constructed and deliberately buried beneath.

The rath itself, a type of circular earthen enclosure used as a farmstead or settlement during the early medieval period, provides the broader context. Souterrains are frequently associated with raths, and their entrances were often positioned within the enclosing bank or fosse, the defensive ditch surrounding the rath, which is precisely where this concentration of stonework appears. The fosse at the north-north-east of the site is where the slabs have gathered, either collapsed inward or disturbed over centuries of agricultural activity, erosion, or simple neglect. Whether the passage beneath, if it exists, remains intact is unknown.