Children's burial ground, Derreennagusfoor, Co. Galway

A solitary thorntree grows beside the graves, and at the north-western end of the hillock sits a large limestone erratic, a boulder deposited by glacial movement and left stranded on the landscape long before anyone thought to bury their dead nearby. Together, these elements amount to a quietly affecting place, easy to miss and, in the ordinary run of things, seldom visited.

Cnocán na bPáistí belongs to a tradition once widespread across Ireland: the cillín, or children's burial ground, set apart from consecrated parish cemeteries. Unbaptised infants, and sometimes others considered ineligible for burial in hallowed ground, were interred in such liminal spots, often ancient earthworks, island edges, or elevated ground within the bog. The site lies to the north-west of Loch an Iarainn, in the Derreennagusfoor townland of County Galway. The graves themselves are outlined by small stones, a modest but deliberate marking, and the thorntree beside them is a detail consistent with the folklore surrounding such places, where lone thorn trees were frequently regarded as significant, even protective. The site is recorded under the anglicised townland name, though the Irish placename carries the meaning that matters most here.