Roughly eight metres across and only about forty centimetres high, the raised area is studded with stones that push up through the sod, each one marking a grave. The whole thing could easily be mistaken for a natural feature of the hillside, which is part of what makes it so quietly affecting.

This is a cillín, a type of informal burial ground used in Ireland for centuries to inter those who, under Catholic canon law, were denied burial in consecrated ground. Unbaptised infants were the most common occupants, though suicides, strangers, and others considered outside the sacramental community were sometimes buried here too. These sites were typically located at liminal spots in the landscape, on boundaries, near ancient monuments, or on slopes like this one, slightly apart from the settled world. The circular form of the Knockroe example is characteristic; many cilliní share this roughly enclosed, bounded quality, as though the community felt some need to demarcate the space even without official sanction. The stones projecting through the grass are uncut and unlettered, offering no names, no dates, only a general sense of how many small lives passed through without formal record.

The site sits in open grassland, and the west-facing slope means the light falls across it in a way that makes the surface stones easier to read in the afternoon. There is no signage or formal access infrastructure, so finding it requires some local orientation and a willingness to cross fields.