This moated site, protected under a preservation order since 1973, once housed a castle that had already vanished by 1838, when the Ordnance Survey mapmakers could only record it as a ‘Site of Castle Parknanassa’. The castle’s ghost lingered a bit longer in local memory though; the OS Letters from the same period mention an intriguing arched gateway that locals called ‘Cloch Aill’ in Irish, and the 1839 OS Name Books even include a sketch of this mortared stone structure with its round-headed arch and crumbling masonry edges.

By the early 20th century, even these remnants were fading fast. When Lynch Athy visited in 1914, she found that the mysterious archway had completely disappeared, leaving behind only the suggestion that castle walls once followed the inside edge of the defensive ditch, with just a few scattered stones marking their former presence. Her observation that these might have been the remains of a bawn wall, a defensive courtyard typical of Irish castles, adds another layer to the site’s medieval character.

Today, visitors to this monument will find even less to see; just a small section of foundation wall in the southeast corner of the interior, built from large stone blocks and measuring about two metres long and less than half a metre high. These modest remains are likely what Lynch Athy described over a century ago, serving as the last physical testimony to a fortification that once commanded this spot in the Galway landscape. The site remains archaeologically significant despite its sparse visible features, offering researchers clues about medieval settlement patterns and defensive structures in the region.