These structures were constructed from stone, sometimes lined and roofed with large slabs, and are found across the country in considerable numbers. Their exact purposes are still debated: storage of perishables in the cool underground air, refuge in times of threat, or some combination of both. The Kilfelim example is recorded as a monument, which is itself a kind of quiet confirmation that something deliberate and human-made lies beneath the surface of this corner of Kerry.

Beyond its classification and location, the details of this particular souterrain remain largely undocumented in the public domain. The townland name Kilfelim derives from the Irish, with the "Kil" element suggesting a church or ecclesiastical enclosure, a common feature in early medieval settlements that were often associated with the kinds of farming communities that also built souterrains nearby. Whether any such enclosure survives in the area, and what relationship it might bear to the underground structure, is not currently known from available sources. It is a site that exists, for now, more as a placeholder than a fully understood piece of the landscape.