The site, known locally as Castle field, lies in the valley of the Polehore Pill, a small stream that winds its way from west to east through the pastoral landscape. Though the 1839 Ordnance Survey map confidently marks an 8 by 6 metre rectangular structure here, labelled as the ‘site of Castle’ on both that edition and its 1941 successor, today’s visitors will find only an unremarkable pasture field with no visible remnants above ground.

The mystery deepens when considering that another castle site, catalogued as WX037-014, already exists at Polehore, making this phantom fortification something of an historical puzzle. Was this a secondary defensive structure, perhaps a tower house or fortified dwelling that complemented the main castle? Or could it represent an earlier or later phase of occupation that local memory conflated into a single ‘castle’ tradition? The Ordnance Survey cartographers of the 1830s were meticulous in their recording of local knowledge and place names, often relying on information from elderly residents who carried oral histories stretching back generations.

Today, the site serves as a reminder of how much of Ireland’s medieval heritage exists only in documentary traces and place names. The Castle field continues to be grazed by cattle, its name the sole guardian of whatever stone walls once stood here, some 50 metres south of the babbling Polehore Pill. Archaeological investigations might one day reveal foundation stones or other subsurface features that could tell us more about this enigmatic structure, but for now, it remains one of Wexford’s more elusive historical footnotes.