This is a cillin, a type of unconsecrated burial ground used in Ireland for centuries to inter those whom the Catholic Church would not permit in consecrated ground: unbaptised infants, stillborn children, and occasionally others considered to exist on the margins of the parish community. Such places are found across the country, quiet and unassuming, and are often the most affecting of all early burial sites.

The enclosure at Killurly is subrectangular in shape, measuring roughly 16 metres north to south and 11.5 metres east to west, and is defined on three sides by low stony banks that incorporate existing boulders and outcrop, with a modern field boundary marking its southern edge. The more than one hundred small grave-markers are concentrated largely in the northern half of the enclosed area, some upright and set in discernible rows. What gives this particular site an added layer of local memory is a cluster of three large rectangular stone blocks in its south-western quadrant, which are reputed by local tradition to mark the grave of a black man. The identity of this individual is unrecorded, but the tradition itself is suggestive: cillini sometimes served as a burial place for those outside the ordinary social order, strangers or castaways among them, people for whom no other ground was available or offered.