That omission is itself worth noting. Souterrains, the stone-lined or earth-cut tunnels built across early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the seventh to the twelfth centuries, were used for storage and possibly as refuges. They tend to leave traces in the landscape that surveyors eventually catch up with. This one, quietly tucked into the south-east corner of its field near Staigue, was catalogued not by cartographers but by archaeologists working methodically across South Kerry.

The structure is modest but carefully made. The entrance faces south-east and opens into a passage roughly 0.9 metres wide and 1.5 metres high, its earthen walls roofed with overlapping stone lintels kept in place by small wedged pad-stones beneath them. The passage slopes downward to the north-west for just under two metres before reaching a creepway, a deliberately narrow squeeze-through, in the end wall, measuring only 0.6 metres by 0.4 metres. Beyond it, a build-up of stone blocks further progress. A second creepway, set into the south-west side-wall, is similarly tight and leads into a domed chamber oriented roughly north-east to south-west, though a mound of accumulated earth just inside the entrance makes it inaccessible. That combination, a roofed passage giving onto creepways and a domed inner chamber, is characteristic of the form: the tight constrictions between sections would have slowed any intruder and made the inner spaces defensible or at least hard to reach quickly.

The site was documented as part of the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula published by Cork University Press in 1996, compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan. Access to the interior is obstructed by collapsed stone and earthfall, so what the structure looked like when fully open, and what it once contained, remains a matter for inference rather than inspection.