These sites, known in Irish tradition as cillíní (singular cillín), were places set aside for the interment of unbaptised infants and others who, under Catholic canonical practice, were excluded from burial in consecrated ground. That exclusion carried real weight in rural communities, and the result was a geography of small, unofficial graves scattered across the countryside, often in marginal or liminal spots: old ringforts, coastal dunes, the corners of fields, or the ruins of early medieval enclosures. Many were used continuously from the medieval period through to the twentieth century, and most were maintained by local families who knew their significance without ever marking it formally.