What remains today is rather modest; a ruinous stone wall stretching about 15 metres from north to south, standing roughly 1.5 metres high and 1.3 metres thick. This substantial wall has been incorporated into a later field fence, suggesting that local farmers found practical use for the castle’s bones long after its abandonment. The site appeared on the Ordnance Survey’s six-inch map of 1842 as a rectangular structure, though no other surface traces of the original building survive.

This was once an O’Driscoll castle, part of the network of fortifications that this powerful Gaelic clan built throughout West Cork during the medieval period. The O’Driscolls controlled much of the region’s maritime trade and needed strongholds like Fahanacowley to maintain their authority over the surrounding territories. The castle’s position on a cliff overlooking a stream would have provided both defensive advantages and control over a water route, typical of O’Driscoll strategic thinking.

Archaeological records first formally documented the site in the 1992 Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, though local knowledge of the castle’s existence stretches back much further. Today, visitors searching for the site will find little more than that incorporated wall amongst the trees, a quiet reminder of the O’Driscoll presence that once dominated these lands. The lack of substantial remains makes it a challenge to locate, but for those interested in Ireland’s medieval heritage, even these modest ruins represent an authentic piece of the complex tapestry of Gaelic lordship in pre-conquest Munster.