That is, in a sense, precisely the point. Somewhere beneath the ground here, within the enclosure of a ringfort, lies a collapsed stone-built souterrain, a type of underground passage or chamber constructed during the early medieval period, typically used for storage, refuge, or both. No trace of it breaks the surface. The ground gives nothing away.

The site was recorded by McCarthy in 1977, who noted the souterrain's collapsed condition and its stone construction. It sits within a ringfort, the circular enclosures that pepper the Irish countryside in their thousands and represent the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, usually dating from roughly the sixth to the tenth centuries. Souterrains were commonly dug within or adjacent to these enclosures, their corbelled or lintelled stone passages offering cool, dark spaces that suited the keeping of dairy produce, or shelter in times of danger. At Rathaneague, whatever shape or extent the original passage took, it had already fallen in by the time it was formally noted in the late twentieth century.