All that remains visible today is a shallow, L-shaped fosse, or defensive ditch, that once may have protected a now-vanished fortification. The earthwork runs for about 60 metres in a northwest to southeast direction before making a sharp right angle and continuing northeast for another 80 metres. Though time has reduced this feature to a mere depression in the ground, barely half a metre deep at its lowest points and no more than six metres wide, it still marks out the ghostly footprint of what could have been a significant defensive structure.

The fosse itself tells an interesting story of both medieval engineering and modern land use. Rather than the stones and debris one might expect to find in an ancient defensive ditch, it’s currently filled with loose, dark organic material; quite possibly the result of overflow from one of the several garden centres that now operate in the area. This rather mundane modern infill obscures what would have been an important defensive feature, originally dug to protect whatever structure once stood here, whether a tower house, a fortified residence, or perhaps a bawn used to protect cattle from raiders.

Archaeological investigations have yet to uncover the full story of this site. In 2004, when test trenches were dug nearby in preparation for building a private house and driveway, archaeologists found no additional deposits or artefacts that might shed light on the site’s history. The location remains classified simply as KD013-02, a possible castle site, leaving its true nature and importance tantalisingly unclear. What we see today may be all that survives of a once-important stronghold, its stones long since carted away for other buildings, leaving only this subtle earthwork as evidence of Kildare’s turbulent medieval past.