The placename translates roughly as the church or cell of Enda, and the graveyard here marks what was, from at least the fifth or sixth century, a site of considerable religious importance. Enda is traditionally credited with founding a monastic community on Inis Mór that became a training ground for many of the saints associated with the flowering of Irish Christianity, among them Ciarán of Clonmacnoise and Brendan of Clonfert. The graveyard at Cill Éinne sits within that long shadow.

The site belongs to a pattern common across early Christian Ireland, where a founder's original enclosure, often marked by a circular or oval boundary, gradually accumulated burials across many centuries. These places frequently contain the remains of early church architecture, fragments of carved stonework, or remnants of a cashel, a dry-stone ecclesiastical enclosure, alongside later grave markers ranging from rough slabs to more elaborate nineteenth-century headstones. Cill Éinne itself is understood to be the location of Enda's original foundation, making it arguably the oldest continuously venerated Christian site on the island. The bay beside it still carries the name, and the village that grew up nearby reflects the enduring pull of that early settlement.