The name stuck long enough to be recorded by the antiquarian John O'Donovan in 1837, and to be annotated plainly as "Cave" on the Ordnance Survey Fair Plan map of the same year. It is a rare case where a local nickname and an official cartographic record happen to tell exactly the same story.

The structure at the centre of the ringfort is a souterrain, an underground stone-built passage or chamber of early medieval Irish origin, typically associated with ringforts and thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. The ringfort itself sits on a slight rise in the landscape, a modest but deliberate elevation that would once have given its occupants a clear view of the surrounding ground. The souterrain entrance, set into a small hollow at the centre of the enclosure, now has its opening backfilled with stones, sealing off whatever passage remains below.