A souterrain, which is a man-made underground structure typically built during the early medieval period and associated with nearby settlements, was discovered here around 1960. That is, more or less, the full extent of what is formally recorded. No dimensions, no description of its construction, no account of who found it or what, if anything, was found inside.

What gives the site a degree of archaeological weight, despite the thinness of the record, is its association with a possible ringfort nearby. Ringforts, the circular enclosed farmsteads that were the dominant settlement form in early medieval Ireland, frequently had souterrains attached to them, dug beneath the interior or extending outward under the enclosing banks. These underground chambers served various purposes, possibly as cool storage for dairy produce, as places of refuge, or both. The Killinardrish souterrain fits this pattern, sitting in the landscape as a probable companion to a settlement that has itself left only uncertain traces. Neither feature announces itself; both require a degree of faith in the record to believe they are there at all.

There is no visible surface trace of the souterrain today, and the site offers nothing to the eye of a passing visitor. Its interest lies less in what can be seen than in what the bare facts suggest: a community living and farming in this corner of Cork more than a thousand years ago, whose underground work survived long enough to be stumbled upon in the middle of the twentieth century, and recorded in little more than a sentence.