This tower house, likely built in the 15th or 16th century, was once home to local chieftains who controlled this part of Clare. Though now reduced to ruins, the castle’s surviving walls still rise impressively from the surrounding fields, their rough limestone construction typical of the fortified residences built by Gaelic and Anglo-Norman families during this turbulent period of Irish history.

The castle follows the classic design of an Irish tower house; a vertical fortress built for defence as much as domestic life. Its rectangular plan would have originally stood several storeys high, with the ground floor used for storage and the upper levels containing the main living quarters. Murder holes, narrow windows, and thick walls provided protection from raiders and rival clans, whilst the elevated position allowed the inhabitants to survey their lands and spot approaching visitors or enemies. The structure would have been topped with a pitched roof and surrounded by a bawn, or defensive courtyard, though little evidence of these outer defences remains today.

Derrycrossaun Castle’s isolated location speaks to the scattered pattern of settlement in medieval Clare, where powerful families built their strongholds at strategic points across the landscape. Like many Irish castles, it likely fell into decline following the Cromwellian conquest of the 1650s, when traditional landholding patterns were disrupted and many native Irish families were dispossessed. Today, the ivy-covered ruins stand as a monument to centuries of local history, from medieval clan warfare through to the upheavals of the early modern period.