By the time the surveyors returned in 1919, it had disappeared from the record entirely. What the earlier cartographers were most likely noting was a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber built during the early medieval period, typically associated with a rath, the circular earthwork enclosure that surrounds this one. Souterrains were used for storage, refuge, or both, and they tend to survive as fragments rather than intact structures.

The souterrain sits within a rath, a type of enclosed farmstead common across early medieval Ireland, usually defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. Whether the label "Cave" on the 1838 map reflected local oral tradition or simply the surveyor's own assessment of what he saw is impossible to say now. What may remain is visible in the southern half of the rath interior, where a large stone slab, possibly a lintel from the original roof of the passage, can be made out in a small void in the ground. The area has since been disturbed by a badger sett, which has a tendency to accelerate the collapse of just this kind of subsurface stonework.