These places, known in Irish as cillíní (the singular is cillín), were used for the burial of unbaptised infants, and in some cases suicides, strangers, or others considered ineligible for consecrated ground under Catholic Church practice. They occupy a particular kind of liminal space in Irish social and religious history, neither fully sacred nor entirely profane, chosen with apparent care but kept at a remove from the parish churchyard.

The practice of burying unbaptised children apart from the main community is documented from the early medieval period in Ireland, though cillíní remained in active use well into the twentieth century in some rural areas. The locations chosen were often ancient or already marginal in some way, old ringfort banks, townland boundaries, shorelines, or the ruins of early ecclesiastical sites. The word cillín itself derives from the Irish word for a small church or cell, suggesting that many of these spots were already associated with an older, pre-parochial layer of Christian practice. The grief surrounding these burials was real and lasting, and the sites were generally tended quietly by families even when they received no official recognition.

The Kilkee example sits within this broader tradition, though the specific details of its history, its precise location within the townland, its period of use, and any associated local customs, remain to be properly documented in the public record.