These structures were built by hand, usually by roofing a trench with large stone lintels and backfilling it, and they served a range of purposes that archaeologists still debate, from storage and refuge to ritual use. That one exists at Derryronan is itself the extent of what is currently on the public record.

Souterrains are found in considerable numbers across Ireland, particularly in areas of early ecclesiastical or agricultural settlement, and Mayo has its share. They tend to turn up in association with ringforts, the circular enclosed farmsteads that were the dominant settlement form of early medieval rural Ireland, though they occasionally appear in isolation or alongside other monument types. The passage at Derryronan has been recorded and assigned a monument number, which places it within a national inventory that stretches to tens of thousands of sites, many of them similarly spare in their documented detail. Without further excavation or survey, the precise form of the structure, its dimensions, the number of chambers, and any associated finds remain unknown.