This rectangular stronghold, measuring roughly 14 metres east to west and 8 metres north to south, represents a later incarnation of a site with much older roots. The structure we see today replaced an earlier castle built in 1560 by the Mhic Fhirbhisigh family, who served as hereditary poets and historians to the O’Dowds of Tireragh.

The fortified house rises two storeys with attic space, its thick walls punctuated by flat-headed rectangular windows and defended by circular towers at its corners. While only the northwest and southwest towers survive today, each spanning just over 4 metres in diameter, early 19th-century plans show the building once boasted matching towers at all four corners. The remaining towers still display their original defensive features: narrow gun loops and small windows arranged across both floors. The main entrance, complete with its original drawbar sockets, occupies the centre of the north wall, whilst a massive chimney dominates the western wall, serving large fireplaces on both the ground and first floors; the ground floor fireplace even includes a small oven built into its southern side.

The castle’s history reads like a who’s who of Irish conflict and politics. After the Mhic Fhirbhisigh family sold it to the MacDonnells in 1597, it quickly passed to John Crofton and then to Thomas Nolan of Ballinrobe. The tumultuous 1640s saw the castle commandeered by Irish forces in 1641, witness a skirmish between crown forces and local militia in 1642, and fall to Cromwell’s army in 1645. Following the war, Sir Thomas Gore claimed ownership, marking yet another chapter in this fortification’s remarkably turbulent past. Though time and conflict have claimed the eastern walls and towers, what remains offers a tangible connection to centuries of Sligo’s complex history.