The Whitty family held this strategic location for centuries, first receiving it from the Marshalls in the early 13th century. Records show Robert de Wythay held the lands by half a knight’s fee in 1247, and the family maintained their grip through turbulent times. When Art Mac Murrough Kavanagh burned an earlier castle here in 1408, the Whittys likely built the current tower house as its replacement. The family’s fortunes took dramatic turns over the centuries; in 1594, Spanish privateers kidnapped Richard Whitty whilst seeking information about a ship carrying Catholic dignitaries to Ireland, dragging him back to Spain before he eventually made his way home through means the State Papers never quite clarified.

The tower house itself is a formidable five storey structure with an attic, rising 20.5 metres and still complete to its battlements and lookout platforms. Built with a defensive base batter and fine quoins, it features a projecting garderobe tower at its southeast corner. The original entrance, a pointed granite doorway on the north wall, was protected by both machicolation and a murder hole, whilst inside, a clever system of mural stairs winds through the walls, connecting floors that once served different purposes; from storage vaults lined with red brick to living quarters with fireplaces and window seats. One particularly intriguing feature is a hidden chamber or oubliette accessed through a trapdoor in the garderobe floor, whilst the wall walks offer defended positions with lookout posts supported on pillars at the corners.

The tower house forms the southeast corner of a rectangular bawn measuring roughly 30 by 23 metres internally, with walls that once rose 7 to 8 metres high on the south side. A circular tower guards the northwest corner, containing four floors with slit windows for defence. After the Whittys were transplanted to Connaught following the Cromwellian conquest in 1653, the estate passed to the Colcloughs of Tintern. John Colclough, a United Irishman, was executed after the 1798 rebellion following his capture on the nearby Saltee Islands. Either his family or the Youngs who followed them built the house that now attaches to the north of the tower, which remains occupied today, ensuring this medieval fortress continues its long history of habitation into the modern era.