Killeens, sometimes spelled cilliní, were unconsecrated plots used in Ireland for centuries to inter those who could not, under Catholic Church practice, be buried in consecrated ground. This included unbaptised infants, stillborn children, and occasionally strangers, suicide victims, or others considered outside the bounds of formal Christian burial. They tend to occupy marginal land, old field boundaries, or the edges of ancient ecclesiastical sites, and they are often marked by little more than small stones or slight rises in the earth, easily overlooked by anyone who does not know what they are looking at.