The structures, typically built between roughly the seventh and twelfth centuries, served variously as places of refuge, storage for perishables, or concealed escape routes; their exact function likely shifted depending on circumstance and the needs of whoever sheltered above ground. That one survives at Cloonmore, formally recognised and legally protected, is itself a small quiet fact worth sitting with.

Souterrains are found across Ireland in their hundreds, often discovered by accident during agricultural work or construction, and frequently left without much documentary record. The Cloonmore example has at least been formally acknowledged, protected under national monuments legislation since 1956. That date places the preservation order in the early decades of the Irish state's efforts to catalogue and protect its archaeological inheritance, a period when many such underground structures were first being properly recorded rather than simply filled in or forgotten.

Beyond its existence and its protected status, the specific character of this particular souterrain, its dimensions, construction, or state of preservation, remains undocumented in any publicly available detail. What can be said is that the land around Cloonmore, like much of Kerry, carries layers of occupation stretching back millennia, and that underground passages of this kind are rarely found in isolation. A souterrain generally implies a settlement nearby, even if every trace of the houses and enclosures above ground has long since vanished into the grass.