The word itself, a diminutive of the Irish "cill" meaning church, refers to a small, unconsecrated burial ground, typically used for unbaptised infants, stillborns, or occasionally suicides and strangers, those whom the Church would not receive into consecrated soil. These sites are scattered across the Irish landscape in considerable numbers, yet they remain among the least visited and least discussed of all archaeological monument types, occupying a marginal place both physically and in the historical record. That marginality is precisely what makes them worth attention.