These sites, known in Irish as cilliní (singular cillín), were used across Ireland for the interment of unbaptised infants, who were excluded by Catholic doctrine from consecrated ground. They occupy a strange, liminal position in the Irish landscape: not quite sacred, not quite secular, typically set apart at the margins of townlands, near old boundaries, ruined churches, or ancient earthworks. The one at Talach belongs to this largely unmarked tradition.

Cilliní were in active use from at least the medieval period through to the mid-twentieth century, their locations often passed down by word of mouth rather than formal record. Because unbaptised children were considered to exist in a theological grey zone, their burials were conducted without ceremony and without the usual markers of a churchyard grave. Over time, many of these sites became overgrown or forgotten, their existence preserved mainly in local memory and in the accumulated work of archaeologists and folklorists. The Talach site is one of hundreds recorded across Connacht alone, each one a small, unannounced feature in the land that rewards attentiveness rather than spectacle.