The five-storey limestone tower house, roughly coursed with a defensive base batter, once belonged to the Howet family before passing to the powerful Butler Earls of Ormond. The Ormond Deeds of 1530 reveal that the original castle on this site was “razed and destroyed” by Edmund fitz Piers Butler of Dunboyne, suggesting the violent feuds that characterised medieval Ireland. By the 1650s, the rebuilt tower was firmly in Ormond hands, with the Civil Survey recording it as part of their manor holdings.

The tower house showcases classic defensive architecture of its era, with a murder hole greeting visitors just inside the ground floor entrance on the north wall. A cleverly designed mural staircase winds through the thick walls, connecting five floors that were once divided by wooden beams resting on stone corbels. Each level served different purposes; the vaulted first floor with its stone ceiling, the second floor with its garderobe and multiple wall cupboards, and the upper chambers lit by narrow windows cut through walls that measure up to half a metre thick. The building reveals signs of multiple occupations and modifications, including inserted fireplaces and evidence of structural repairs where the eastern section of the first floor vault appears to have been rebuilt with pointed arches after a collapse.

Even in ruin, the castle continued to shelter local inhabitants well into the 19th century. When Ordnance Survey inspectors arrived in 1840, they found the ground floor still occupied, though the resident had locked up and gone out on business, preventing their entry. The tower lost its battlements around 1830 when stones were likely pilfered for the nearby Church of Ireland building, which now blocks the view to the north where the medieval parish church once stood just 100 metres away. Today, visitors can still trace the garderobe chute exiting near ground level on the west wall and spot the broken remains of water spouts that once drained the parapet level, testament to the practical engineering that kept this fortress habitable for centuries.