Unlike most Irish castles of its era, this imposing structure lacks the typical central tower house or keep. Instead, what remains is a remarkably well-preserved square curtain wall, measuring roughly 60 metres north to south and 56 metres east to west, constructed from locally sourced limestone rubble. The walls, standing six metres high and over two metres thick, feature a subtle base batter and were originally defended by narrow arrow slits set within deep, segmental arched embrasures. These defensive openings, positioned two metres above ground level, would have been accessed via wooden platforms that have long since vanished.

The castle’s most notable feature is its two-storey gatehouse, which projects from the northeast corner of the curtain wall. This structure, often mistakenly identified as the main tower in early Ordnance Survey records, served as the primary defensive point and living quarters. The gatehouse retains evidence of its original portcullis mechanism, with slots still visible in the passage walls beneath the first-floor chamber. Originally, defenders could access the wall-walk directly from this upper chamber, though later modifications added a stone mural staircase for easier access. The absence of stone foundations within the curtain walls suggests that the castle’s domestic buildings were likely timber structures built against the inner faces of the walls, a common feature of thirteenth-century keepless castles.

The site underwent significant alterations during the late nineteenth century when a house was built into the centre of the western wall, leaving behind an impressive fireplace and external buttressing that still protrudes from the curtain wall. This Victorian intervention also added a round-arched gateway to the northern wall and a series of bee boles, small recesses used for housing traditional straw beehives, near the eastern end of the same wall. The orchard that currently occupies part of the enclosed area likely dates from this same period of domestic reoccupation. As one of the better-preserved examples of a thirteenth-century keepless castle in Ireland, Ballingarry offers visitors a chance to explore an unusual defensive design that relied on high curtain walls and a fortified gatehouse rather than the more familiar central tower keep.