It exists on the landscape and in the archaeological register, but the details that might explain it, its age, its extent, who was buried there and under what circumstances, remain effectively out of reach for the casual researcher.

The townland name Carrownakilly derives from the Irish ceathrú na coille, meaning the quarter of the wood, a placename pattern common across Clare and Connacht that hints at a landscape once more densely wooded than it appears today. Burial grounds in rural Ireland occupy a wide spectrum: from early medieval cillíní, small unconsecrated plots used for the burial of unbaptised infants, to pre-Christian cairn burials, to post-Famine community graveyards that simply fell out of use. Without further documentation it is not possible to say which tradition this site belongs to, or how old it may be. That ambiguity is itself part of what makes it worth noting.