This 15th-century tower house once served as both fortress and centre of learning, home to the renowned bardic family of O’Higgins who ran one of Ireland’s most celebrated poetry schools here. The poet Tadhg Dall Ó hUigín wrote in the late 1500s that “seventeen poets of Ulster’s brightest progeny sought learning in Kilclooney of Connacht”, testament to the site’s cultural significance during a time when Gaelic learning flourished alongside political upheaval. The O’Higgins family maintained their hold on the castle through turbulent times; records show Donal O’Higgin occupied it in 1574, whilst Bryen, Hugh and Tully O’Higgin still held three parts of Kilclooney in 1641, though their lands were eventually granted to William Burke during the Restoration.

Today, only two storeys remain of the tower house, which measures roughly 10.6 metres east to west and 9.2 metres north to south. Despite centuries of stone robbing that have left much of the external facing stripped away, revealing the rubble core beneath, the structure still displays fascinating architectural details. Visitors entering through the robbed doorway in the south wall would have once passed a protective gun loop before reaching a small lobby that led to a barrel-vaulted guardroom, where remarkably preserved wicker-centring from the original construction still clings to the vault’s underside. The main ground floor chamber featured defensive slit windows set deep into the walls, whilst a spiral staircase in the southeast corner, now largely collapsed, once provided access to the upper floors. The first floor housed both a main chamber and a subsidiary room above the entrance, lit by a cusped ogee-headed window; a fine example of late medieval Irish architectural style.

Recent conservation efforts have helped stabilise what remains of this important monument. In 2021, works funded by the Community Monuments Fund focused on making the structure waterproof and preventing further deterioration. Archaeological surveys have revealed additional defensive features including yett holes, bar-slots for securing doorways, and the remains of a garderobe chute in the north wall. The castle sits within a wider historic landscape; traces of medieval field systems surround the tower, whilst a rath (ringfort) lies about 140 metres to the northwest, suggesting this ridge has been a focal point for settlement for well over a millennium. Though the days when aspiring poets gathered here to study under the O’Higgins masters are long past, Kilclooney Castle remains a poignant reminder of when Gaelic Ireland’s cultural and political worlds intersected within these now silent walls.