Today, you’d be hard pressed to find any trace of it; the site has vanished so completely that it no longer appears on the Ordnance Survey maps that once carefully documented its location in their second and third editions. The burial ground sat atop a ridge of rock, a natural elevation that would have made it a prominent feature in the landscape when it was in use.

The disappearance of Killydesert burial ground represents a common story across Ireland, where countless historical sites have been reclaimed by nature or lost to agricultural development. What we know of this particular site comes from the Archaeological Survey of County Donegal, a comprehensive catalogue compiled in 1983 that attempted to document the county’s archaeological heritage from the Mesolithic period through to the 17th century. The survey, undertaken by Brian Lacey and his team of researchers, captured details of sites like Killydesert before they were completely forgotten.

Without physical remains or visible markers, the burial ground now exists only in historical records and local memory. Its position on that rocky ridge, overlooking the surrounding countryside from its southern slope, would have been deliberately chosen; such elevated sites were commonly selected for burials in medieval Ireland, offering both practical drainage and symbolic proximity to the heavens. The rough pasture that now covers the area gives no hint of the generations who once brought their dead to this hillside, leaving behind a landscape that holds its secrets beneath seemingly unremarkable grass and stone.