These small, unconsecrated plots were used for centuries to inter unbaptised infants, and sometimes others considered to occupy an ambiguous position in relation to the Church, including stillborn children, strangers, and the unbaptised poor. Excluded from consecrated ground by Catholic doctrine, they were quietly maintained on the margins, often tucked beside old ringforts, on the edges of bogs, or near ancient earthworks, places already understood to be liminal in the local landscape.

Cillíní are found in considerable numbers across Ireland, particularly in the west, and their use persisted well into the twentieth century in some areas. The practice reflected a theological anxiety about the fate of unbaptised souls, who were understood to dwell in limbo rather than heaven, and were therefore not permitted burial in the parish churchyard. For families, these small plots offered an alternative that was local, quiet, and carried its own folk sanctity. The Carrownisky site sits within this wider tradition, in a part of Mayo shaped by generations of subsistence farming, coastal living, and communities whose relationship with the institutional Church was often layered with older, more localised custom.