The castle appears on several 17th-century Down Survey maps, depicted as a tower house standing immediately below the southern boundary between Aderrig and Lucan parishes. These valuable cartographic records, created by William Petty in 1657 and later copied by Daniel O’Brien in the 1780s, provide our best clues to the castle’s whereabouts.

Historical documents offer tantalising glimpses into the castle’s past. A 1546 Inquisition examining the estate of St Patrick’s collegiate and cathedral church noted that “the town-lands of Adderge and Marshallrathe is one castle, or mansion”, suggesting the structure served as both fortification and residence. By the time of the 1654-56 Civil Survey of Dublin, the building was already showing its age; the survey recorded “an Old Castle” at Aderrig, along with “a good farme House and some Cabbans at Backstowne”.

The castle formed part of the forfeited townlands of Aderrig and Backstowne, indicating it was caught up in the land confiscations that followed the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. While the physical structure has long since vanished from the landscape, its presence on multiple historical maps and in various administrative records ensures that this piece of Dublin’s medieval heritage hasn’t been entirely forgotten.