The original castle at this strategic location overlooking a bend of the River Laune was built in 1215 by Maurice FitzGerald, one of the Anglo-Norman lords who sought to establish control over this part of Kerry. Its early years were marked by violence; the MacCarthys demolished and burned it following their victory over the Geraldines at the Battle of Callan in 1261. Though quickly refortified, the castle faced destruction again in 1280 when its guards fled in fear of local Irish forces, leaving it to be burned once more.

What visitors see today, however, isn’t FitzGerald’s original fortress but a later tower house built by the O’Sullivan Mor family, who controlled the castle for much of its later history. The Earl of Ormond demolished the structure in 1570, yet the O’Sullivans managed to reoccupy it; Daniel O’Sullivan of Dunloe even represented Kerry in Parliament in 1613. The castle’s fortunes shifted dramatically during the Cromwellian period when it was forfeited in 1656 and acquired by Sir William Petty, before eventually passing to the O’Mahony family in the late 1600s. One of the O’Mahonys renovated the tower in the 1820s, giving it a more romantic appearance that caught the eye of antiquarian Thomas Westropp, who sketched it in 1891.

The tower house remains an imposing presence on its elevated ridge at the northern end of the site. About 30 metres southwest, hidden in dense overgrowth, visitors might spot remnants of what was likely a bawn wall; a defensive enclosure that would have protected livestock and provided an outer line of defence. Standing about 2.2 metres high and showing signs of modern repair work, this fragment offers a tangible link to the castle’s defensive past, when such fortifications were essential for survival in medieval and early modern Kerry.