The castle first appears on historical records in the 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, where its site was marked just east of a small cluster of farm buildings. By the time surveyors returned in 1920, they’d shifted the castle’s recorded location about 60 metres northwest, placing it in a small, nearly square field measuring roughly 29 metres east to west and 28 metres north to south. They marked it with a simple cross symbol, the cartographer’s way of saying “something was here once”.

What exactly stood here remains something of a mystery. No visible traces survive on the surface, and when the Galway Archaeological Survey from University College Galway compiled their records in September 2021, they found that even local memory had drawn a blank; nobody in the area remembered seeing any upstanding remains of the castle. The De Burgh name itself hints at Norman origins, as the de Burghs (later anglicised to Burke) were one of the great Anglo-Norman families who dominated much of Connacht from the 13th century onwards.

Today, the site serves as a reminder of how thoroughly time and agriculture can erase even substantial stone structures. Where once a castle might have commanded views across the Galway countryside, there’s now only pastureland, indistinguishable from the fields around it. The shifting location between the two map editions suggests that even by the 19th century, the castle’s precise location had already become uncertain; a ghostly presence more suited to historical records than physical reality.