This fragment of medieval masonry, now incorporated into the outhouses of Ballydavid House, is all that survives of what was once a formidable tower house commanding the undulating countryside from its strategic position on a low rise.

The castle’s history can be traced back to at least 1640, when James, Earl of Ormond, held it as proprietor. By the time Oliver Cromwell’s surveyors catalogued Ireland’s buildings in the Civil Survey of 1654;6, the structure had already fallen into ruin, described simply as the “walls of a stone house”. This transformation from defensive stronghold to abandoned shell speaks to the turbulent years of the Confederate Wars and Cromwellian conquest that devastated Ireland’s castle landscape during the mid-seventeenth century.

Today, visitors can still spot one elegant reminder of the castle’s former grandeur: a single ogee-headed limestone window set into the surviving north wall at first-floor level. This Gothic architectural detail, with its distinctive S-shaped curve, would have once illuminated the castle’s upper chambers. Though modest, this lone window offers a tangible connection to medieval Ireland, when such tower houses dotted the countryside, serving as both homes and fortifications for the Anglo-Norman and Gaelic nobility who shaped Tipperary’s contested borderlands.