Yet this low earthwork at Poulnalour in County Clare is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, and its quiet anonymity is part of what makes it worth knowing about. The mound measures roughly 9.3 metres east to west and 7.5 metres north to south, opening towards the west and enclosing a central hollow around 4 metres by 2 metres. A short stretch of stone facing, about 25 centimetres high, survives at the south-western edge of that interior. A small stream runs immediately to the east, turning south and then south-west before passing below the monument, which is the kind of waterside position these sites almost invariably occupy.

Fulachtaí fia, the plural form of the name, are typically Bronze Age in origin and consist of the accumulated debris from repeated cycles of heating stones in fire and plunging them into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The burnt, shattered stones and charcoal-rich soil pile up into the characteristic horseshoe shape over time, with the open end of the curve generally marking where the trough sat. A 1994 map annotation by Tom Coffey suggested that as many as four such monuments lay at this location, a figure that found its way into the Record of Monuments and Places in 1996. When the site was inspected in 1999, however, only two could be identified on the ground: this one and a second example roughly ten metres to the north. Whether the others were lost, obscured, or simply misread from the original annotation is unclear. The ground here is poached and clayey, with the hazel closing in on most sides except for a patch of rough grazing to the south-west, conditions that make close survey work genuinely difficult and that have probably helped preserve what remains.