The four-storey limestone tower house, measuring approximately 11.7 by 9.2 metres with walls two metres thick, once formed part of a 108-acre plantation estate. In 1640, Matthew Kennedy owned this substantial property, which comprised 90 acres of arable land, 12 acres of pasture, and 6 acres of meadow. By the time of the Civil Survey in 1654-56, the castle was already described as ruined, with only its walls standing, though the estate still featured a mill site, an orchard, and eight cabins.

The castle’s defensive architecture reveals sophisticated medieval engineering. Visitors entering through the pointed doorway in the north end of the east wall would have found themselves in a lobby complete with a murder hole overhead and a guardroom to the south. The interior preserves evidence of ambitious construction that was never quite completed; a ledge running along the east and west walls at ground floor level appears to be the springer for a vault that was never built. Mural stairs wind upward through the north and west walls, connecting the various floors, whilst garderobe chambers and chutes provided essential sanitation, with one particularly large example visible at the east end of the south wall, though it’s now blocked and partially collapsed.

Each floor tells its own story of domestic life within these fortified walls. The first and second floors feature substantial fireplace recesses in the east wall, whilst window embrasures with flat-headed single lights pierce the thick walls, some now broken out by time and weather. The third floor, supported by a barrel vault rather than the wooden floors of the levels below, contains an elegant two-light ogee-headed window in the north wall. At the topmost level, mural passages run through the north and south walls at wall-walk height, showing shadows of the original gable roof on their internal faces. The presence of corbels at the corners suggests a bartizan once provided additional defensive capability, whilst a chimney stack on the east wall-walk hints at attempts to maintain some comfort within this formidable structure.