To a passing eye it might read as nothing more than an untended corner of an old earthwork, but local knowledge holds that this irregular, unenclosed area served as a children's burial ground until within living memory.

The site sits within a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead common across Ireland from the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more circular earthen banks. That such enclosures were later repurposed as burial grounds for unbaptised infants is not unusual in the Irish context. These burials, known as cillíní, were a response to ecclesiastical rules that excluded unbaptised children from consecrated ground. Families turned instead to liminal places, including ringforts, which already carried a sense of apartness from the ordinary landscape. What makes this particular site striking is how recently it was in use. According to local information recorded in the archaeological inventory of North Galway, the interior of the ringfort at Cloonascragh was used for children's burials up to forty-six years before the inventory's publication in 1999, placing the practice well into the second half of the twentieth century. The stones visible today are scattered without formal arrangement, marking the ground in the quiet, irregular way that characterises many such sites across the country.