The motte, the castle’s defensive high point, forms a D-shaped summit measuring roughly 15 by 14 metres. It’s encircled by an earthen bank that varies dramatically in height; just 30 centimetres on the interior side but rising to over 1.5 metres externally, with the natural slope beneath adding considerably to its imposing appearance. The straight northwestern edge drops away sharply in a scarp nearly 4 metres high and 7 metres wide, creating a formidable barrier that would have deterred medieval attackers.

Immediately north of the motte lies the bailey, an oval enclosure approximately 37 by 33 metres that would have housed the castle’s everyday activities and structures. This lower courtyard is defined by its own substantial earthen bank, reaching 2.5 metres in height on the outside, with a defensive ditch at its base and traces of a counterscarp bank still visible along the northern and northeastern sections. A curving ramp on the southwestern side, about 4 metres wide, cuts through the bank and likely marks the original entrance. Today, both the motte summit and bailey interior are covered in grass, their gently undulating surfaces the only hint of the wooden structures that once stood here.

The castle’s strategic importance becomes clearer when considering its wider context. A graveyard wall now overlies part of the southwestern fosse, showing how later communities repurposed this defensive site. About 250 metres east in the neighbouring townland of Carrowmore stands another moated site, suggesting this area held particular significance for Norman settlers establishing their control over medieval Sligo. These earthwork castles, whilst less dramatic than their stone counterparts, represent the first wave of Anglo-Norman fortification in Ireland, their mounds and ditches still legible in the landscape eight centuries after their construction.