The enclosure is known as Lisgortnatrasnee, or Lios Gort na Trasnaí in Irish, and the underground passage is a souterrain, a type of man-made tunnel or chamber constructed during the early medieval period, typically used for storage or as a place of refuge. What makes this site quietly puzzling is a cartographic inconsistency: between the first and second editions of the Ordnance Survey map, the marked position of the site shifted by approximately 70 metres down the slope. Whether that reflects a surveying correction or some confusion on the ground is not recorded, and the site's precise location today is uncertain. A slightly raised area near the first-edition position may be the best clue remaining.

The site was described in the Ordnance Survey Name Books for Stradbally as a circular, earthen-banked enclosure, 80 feet in diameter, with what the original text called a "cave of some perches leading from it," the word perches here being an old unit of length rather than a reference to birds. That description was later incorporated into J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region of the Dingle Peninsula, a systematic effort to catalogue the remarkable density of early and prehistoric remains across this part of Kerry. The enclosure itself belongs to a class of ringfort, a lios, which formed the basic unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland. The souterrain would have been an integral feature of that settlement, dug beneath or beside the enclosure and roofed with stone lintels, providing cool, dark storage for dairy produce and, in times of trouble, a place to hide. The views from the slope towards Brandon Mountain and Brandon Bay suggest the site was chosen with some care for its position in the landscape.