The practice has continued for generations, and as of the early 1970s it showed no sign of dying out. It is the kind of custom that sits quietly alongside the official ritual of burial, observed without fanfare, accumulating meaning slowly through repetition rather than ceremony.

The graveyard itself is substantial, a large rectangular enclosure roughly 80 metres east to west and 55 metres north to south, its boundaries marked by masonry walls. Within it stands the parish church of Kilmore. The site sits on low, level ground, with a small stream running north to south about 140 metres to the east. The ecclesiastical enclosure, the older bounded precinct that would have originally defined the sacred space around an early church, appears not to take in the western and northern portions of the current graveyard, and likely extends eastward into the adjoining field instead. This kind of mismatch between the earlier ecclesiastical boundary and a later, expanded burial ground is not unusual in Ireland, where graveyards frequently grew outward over centuries, absorbing agricultural land as a parish's need for burial space increased.

The bush-and-cross custom is what sets this place apart. Roadside markers for the dead are known in various Irish traditions, but the specific practice here, three distinct approach roads, each with its own bush serving as the fixed point of commemoration, suggests something quite localised and persistent. The crosses accumulate, each one tied to a particular person and a particular passing, though over time they would weather and fade into the landscape.