Up close, the ground reveals itself as a burial site that has served two quite different functions across its long history, first as a fort, then as a general burial ground, and eventually as a place set aside specifically for children.

The Ordnance Survey Name Book for the Parish of Skull recorded the site with striking directness: 'A fort which was an old burying ground but at present used only for children.' That phrase, 'used only for children', points to a practice once widespread across Ireland, whereby unconsecrated or semi-formal burial grounds received the bodies of unbaptised infants and young children who could not, under Catholic custom, be interred in consecrated church ground. These sites are sometimes called cillíní, and they frequently occupy older, pre-existing earthworks, as is the case here. The enclosure at Cashelfean is sub-rectangular in shape, measuring roughly 17 metres east to west and 16 metres north to south, and raised about 0.9 metres above the surrounding pasture. That elevation almost certainly reflects the earthen bank of the original fort rather than any deliberate funerary construction. Across the interior, many grave markers remain visible. One grave on the northern side is particularly well defined, consisting of a rectangular bed of stone slabs roughly two metres long and one metre wide, with a headstone at the western end and two footstones at the eastern.