The collapse left a hole roughly a metre long and half a metre wide, and when investigators peered through the slight gap that remained in the fallen debris, they could make out two earth-cut chambers stretching away in opposite directions, one to the north and one to the south.

Souterrains are stone- or earth-lined underground passages and chambers that were constructed, typically during the early medieval period in Ireland, most likely for storage or as refuges. They are fairly common finds across Munster, but few announce themselves quite so abruptly. The Lissacresig example drew no attention from archaeologists or landowners until the moment a piece of farm machinery happened to roll over its roof. The collapsed material that gave it away also sealed it: the structure was recorded as inaccessible, the debris making entry impossible. What is known amounts to little more than those two glimpsed chambers and the dimensions of the accidental entrance.

There is something fitting about the way this site came to light. It had presumably sat undisturbed beneath ordinary grazing land for centuries, its presence entirely unsuspected, and it remains largely unexamined. The glimpse through the rubble is, for now, all there is.