These were unconsecrated plots used for centuries to inter unbaptised infants and others excluded from Christian churchyards, including stillborn children, suicides, and sometimes strangers. They tend to sit apart from the main fabric of parish life, occupying liminal ground, and the one at Cove is no exception. Roughly circular and slightly raised, it measures around 48.5 metres north to south and 45 metres east to west, enclosed by a low bank of earth and stone.

What makes this particular site more complex than many cillíns is the evidence of earlier, more formal religious use layered within it. Near the centre, a raised circular platform about 18 metres across is defined by a one-metre scarp, and within that platform sit the sod-covered foundations of a rectangular structure, roughly seven metres by five and a half. This is interpreted as a possible oratory, a small early Christian chapel of the kind that once served local communities before the parish church system became firmly established. A small annexe on the south-west side, formed by an arc of low earthen bank, suggests the building had some additional functional space. Elsewhere within the enclosure, a circular hut site about six metres across in the north-east quadrant is defined by a collapsed, grass-covered stone wall, and uninscribed upright stones inside it may mark individual burials. In the south-east quadrant, a line of six upright stones running roughly north to south may also serve as grave markers, though none bears any inscription.

The site sits in working pasture, so the earthworks read as low, unassuming undulations in the grass rather than obvious ruins. The sod-covered foundations, the collapsed wall, and the plain standing stones require a slow eye. What emerges from careful looking is a place used across a very long span of time, first as a site of organised early Christian devotion, then as a refuge for those the formal Church would not receive.