The cairn at Poulaphuca sits near the upper edge of a steep north-east-facing slope, and while time and weather have reduced it considerably, its outline is still legible: roughly circular, approximately 14 metres north to south and 13.8 metres east to west, and rising only about 0.8 metres at its highest point. At its centre, a cist, the term for a small stone-lined burial box typically constructed from thin slabs, has collapsed inward, its covering flags now fallen and disordered among the larger flagstones of the cairn body.

What makes this spot particularly worth attention is not the cairn alone but the concentration of prehistoric activity around it. About 50 metres to the north-west lies a second cairn, and roughly 20 metres to the south-east stands a wedge tomb, a form of megalithic monument common in the west of Ireland, with a tapering gallery built from large upright stones and a capstone. Together, the three monuments suggest this elevated ground held some significance to the communities who worked it. Adding further depth to the landscape, the mounds and slab walls crossing the field form part of a multiperiod field system that extends westward across the plateau and into the neighbouring townlands of Cragballyconoal and Eanty More. These are boundaries and enclosures laid down, reworked, and built upon across many generations. On clear days, the cairn at Turlough Hill is visible from here, roughly 6.5 kilometres to the north-north-east, a reminder that these upland monuments were rarely isolated but part of a wider pattern of use and, possibly, of deliberate visual connection across the landscape.