These sites, known in Irish as cilliní (singular cillín), were used for centuries to inter unbaptised infants and others considered, under Catholic doctrine, ineligible for burial in consecrated ground. They occupy a particular kind of marginal space, literally and figuratively, sited at field boundaries, old ringfort banks, shorelines, or the edges of early medieval ecclesiastical enclosures. The one at Kilcloher is recorded as a monument, but detailed documentation has not yet been made publicly available.

The practice of burying unbaptised children outside the parish churchyard persisted in Ireland from the medieval period well into the twentieth century. Because baptism was considered necessary for entry into heaven, infants who died before the rite could be performed were thought to occupy a theological grey area, and their burial was handled accordingly, quietly, often at night, in places that carried an older sanctity or stood just beyond the reach of formal Church authority. Cilliní are found across every county in Ireland, and Clare, with its dense concentration of early ecclesiastical sites and pre-Norman landscape features, has a significant number of them. The townland name Kilcloher likely derives from an earlier Irish ecclesiastical place-name, suggesting this corner of Clare had a religious significance long before the Norman reorganisation of the Irish Church.

Because detailed site-specific information remains limited, visitors approaching Kilcloher should be prepared for a place that reveals itself modestly, if at all. Cilliní rarely carry signage and are not typically managed as visitor monuments. They are more often small enclosed areas, sometimes marked by low earthen banks or rough stone settings, sometimes indistinguishable from the surrounding field until you are already inside them.