The five-storey rectangular tower, measuring 15 metres east to west and 11.2 metres north to south, sits atop an oval-shaped mound surrounded by a waterlogged fosse roughly 7 metres wide. With Kilcrea Friary visible just 500 metres to the east, the castle forms part of a significant medieval complex in this corner of County Cork. The tower is adjoined on its eastern side by a rectangular bawn, a fortified courtyard that likely dates to a slightly later period than the main structure.

The tower’s interior reveals the sophisticated defensive planning typical of late medieval Irish castles. Entry is gained through a pointed-arch doorway on the eastern wall, leading to a lobby where mural stairs begin their ascent through the building’s southeastern corner. Each floor served distinct purposes; the ground floor chamber, lit by narrow windows, provided storage and security, whilst the first floor contained living quarters beneath a rounded vault. The second and third floors feature elaborate mural chambers tucked into the tower’s thick walls, including L-shaped rooms in the corners. Murder holes, cruciform gun loops with circular widenings, and strategic positioning of doorways all speak to the castle’s defensive capabilities, with the gun loops likely added when the bawn was constructed.

The fourth floor represents the castle’s most impressive space, with its grand chamber lit by double ogee-headed windows on all four walls, each originally fitted with mullions and decorated with external hood mouldings. Though the battlements have long since disappeared, the wall walk remains intact atop all four walls. The attached bawn, despite some rebuilding and deterioration at its western ends, retains evidence of former structures built against its inner walls, including garderobe chutes and wall presses. A two-storey tower projects from the southeastern corner of the bawn, complete with its own spiral stairs and defensive features. Tradition attributes the castle’s construction to Cormac Láidir Mac Carthy around the mid-15th century, a dating that aligns well with the architectural evidence, though the bawn and its gun loops appear to be somewhat later additions to this impressive fortification.