When surveyed in 1840, only a portion of the west wall survived; standing 18 feet high but a mere two and a half feet thick, suggesting this was likely a relatively modest fortified dwelling rather than a major stronghold. The Ordnance Survey team noted that potatoes were already growing where the other walls once stood, with no trace of the foundations visible. This solitary wall fragment was all that remained of what historical records describe as a gabled peel tower, a type of fortified house common in Ireland during the late medieval and early modern periods.

The castle appears on the 1657 Down Survey map, where it’s marked as ‘Counagh’ and depicted as a tower house standing beside a cluster of dwellings, indicating it once served as a focal point for a small settlement. During the mid-17th century, the property was held by Barnaby Earl of Thomond, one of the prominent landowners in the region. Interestingly, whilst the 1654-56 Civil Survey makes no mention of the castle itself, it does record that the Earl, along with Sir Nicholas Comyne of Limerick, owned fishing weirs on the River Shannon at Coonagh, with each man holding half the rights to these valuable structures that would have provided a steady income from salmon and other fish catches.

Today, even less remains of Correen Castle than what those Victorian surveyors encountered. The site serves as a poignant reminder of how quickly stone structures can disappear when abandoned, their materials often repurposed for field walls and new buildings. The castle’s location near the Shannon, once advantageous for controlling river traffic and fishing rights, ultimately couldn’t save it from the fate that befell so many of Ireland’s smaller fortified houses; gradual abandonment followed by centuries of stone robbing and agricultural encroachment.