The chamber at the end of its two narrow entrance passages measures just 1.5 metres by 1.7 metres, barely large enough to stand in, yet within that compressed space archaeologists have recovered material ranging from the Early Mesolithic period through to post-medieval times. What makes Killuragh Cave genuinely unusual is not the volume of material alone, but the sheer depth of the human relationship with a single, cramped fissure in the rock over something approaching ten millennia.

The cave came to wider attention in 1992 when the landowner discovered human remains and artefacts concentrated in an area roughly 0.3 metres in diameter at the junction of the first entrance passage and the chamber, at a depth of 0.7 metres. A large stone slab may once have sealed that junction. Radiocarbon dating of three human hand bones produced Early Mesolithic dates of around 8030 and 7880 years before present, alongside a Neolithic date of around 4670 years before present. Archaeological excavations followed in 1993 and again in 1996, directed in part by work published by Woodman and colleagues and reported on by O'Shaughnessy. Those campaigns recovered flint microliths, the small geometric blades characteristic of Mesolithic tool kits, along with hollow scrapers, flint blades, 38 sherds of Late Bronze Age pottery from at least two vessels, and a bone from a Giant Irish deer. A natural alcove in the chamber wall was found to contain a concentration of dog, young pig, and hare bones. A human mandible dated to the Early Bronze Age and a horse sacrum to the later Bronze Age suggest the cave continued to attract attention, and perhaps deliberate deposition, long after its earliest use. Some of the human bones show signs of partial burning, though this may reflect activity in the cave long after the original remains were placed there.

Killuragh Cave sits on the north-eastern slope of a ridge, roughly 145 metres south-west of the Mulkear River, within a landscape that also contains a ringfort 250 metres to the south-west. The 1840 Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows the area as an orchard or small plantation surrounding a farmstead, with a lime kiln and quarry nearby to the west; a lime kiln is a structure used for burning limestone to produce quicklime, common in agricultural landscapes of the period. The cave is one of several that penetrate the same limestone reef. Access is on private farmland, and visitors should seek permission before approaching the site. The passages themselves are narrow, the first only half a metre wide, and the chamber ceiling reaches just 1.4 metres, so any exploration requires care and a light source.