The castle, also known as Dewlish or Béal Átha na Cora in Irish, appears in various historical records from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Thomas Arthur, who died in 1590, held the castles of Reibogg, Delishe, and Ballywiline, whilst his descendant Nicholas Arthur maintained ownership of Dwylish, Rathmichell, and Crewe Iwally between 1633 and 1634. By 1624, Sir William Parsons had taken possession of what records call “Dewlishe or Beallancor Castle.”

The castle’s decline is well documented in the Civil Survey of 1654-56, which describes it as a “broken castle & a Mill seate” belonging to Thomas Arthur, a Limerick alderman and “Irish papist” who had recently died. This survey places the ruined structure near a mill site on the brook Corkanrye, suggesting the castle played a role in the area’s economic life. Maps from the 17th century Down Survey show the castle as a tower house standing close to a bridge over the Ballynaclogh River, with a watermill nearby; a typical arrangement for Anglo-Norman fortifications that needed both defensive positioning and economic viability.

When comparing these historical maps with the 1840 Ordnance Survey, the location of Ballinacurra House corresponds remarkably well with where the castle appears on the earlier Down Survey maps. This alignment strengthens the theory that the later house was indeed built on the castle’s original site, though without archaeological excavation, the precise relationship between the two structures remains speculative. The castle’s various names in the historical record; Dewlish, Ballinacurra, Beallancor, and Beallnacorrie; reflect the linguistic complexity of post-medieval Ireland, where English administrators often struggled to render Irish place names into written form.