These structures, typically dry-stone lined and roofed with large lintels, were dug into the earth beside or beneath ringforts and settlement sites. Their purpose is still debated: cold storage, refuge during raids, or simply a combination of both, depending on the site. What makes this one quietly interesting is precisely how little is currently known about it in any accessible form.

Souterrains are not rare in Kerry. The county has hundreds of recorded examples, many of them associated with the dense pattern of early Christian settlement that characterised the region from roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries. They range from simple, short tunnels to complex multi-chambered systems with carefully constructed ventilation gaps and deliberately low crawl-ways designed to slow any intruder. The Lismore example is recorded as a monument, which tells us it has been identified and noted in the archaeological record, but the details of its form, condition, dimensions, and any associated surface features remain, for the moment, largely inaccessible to the general reader.