The children's burial ground at Inchbeg, in County Clare, belongs to this category of place, known in Irish as a cillín (plural: cilliní). These were informal burial sites, typically used for unbaptised infants, stillborn children, and occasionally others considered outside the boundaries of official Christian burial, including suicides and strangers. They occupy liminal spaces in the landscape, frequently located at old ringfort boundaries, on parish edges, beside ancient earthworks, or on low-lying ground near water. The "inch" in Inchbeg is itself telling, derived from the Irish "inis", meaning a small island or riverside meadow, suggesting this ground sits in the kind of marginal, in-between terrain that communities historically associated with such burials.

The practice of using cilliní persisted in Ireland from early medieval times well into the twentieth century, shaped by the theological position that unbaptised children could not enter heaven and therefore could not share ground with the baptised dead. For families, these sites offered a practical and emotionally necessary alternative, a place where small bodies could be laid to rest with some degree of care, even if outside formal religious rite. In County Clare, as elsewhere in the west of Ireland, the density of such sites reflects both the strength of this tradition and the high rates of infant mortality that characterised rural life over many centuries. The specific history of the Inchbeg site, including when it was in use and by which surrounding communities, is not currently documented in available public records.