These structures are found across Ireland in their hundreds, but the setting here gives this one a particular weight. Slievemore is not a quiet backdrop; it is the kind of mountain that organises a landscape around itself, and the deserted village that stretches along its lower southern slopes is already one of the more quietly unsettling archaeological sites in the west of Ireland.

Souterrains were typically constructed between roughly the seventh and twelfth centuries, often in association with ringforts or early ecclesiastical settlements. They were built by corbelling stone or using large lintels to create subterranean galleries, sometimes with tight crawl-ways designed to slow or confuse an intruder. Their purposes were probably mixed, combining cool storage for dairy produce with the possibility of concealment during a raid. The Slievemore example sits within a landscape already layered with prehistoric and early historic activity, from megalithic tombs on the mountain's upper reaches to the long-abandoned lazy-bed cultivation ridges that run across the hillside below.