This tower house, once rising 50 feet high with walls an impressive 7½ feet thick, has witnessed a succession of owners since at least 1540, when it was held by Richard, brother of Maoilre Burk of Ballinagard. The property changed hands frequently through the Tudor and Stuart periods; by 1584, Donnell O’Heine held it until his death, after which his sons David and Edmund divided the land, though curiously not the castle itself. The estate later passed to Con Clanchy in 1655, before being granted to Sir George Ingoldesbye, whose family connections ran deep into Anglo-Irish society through his wife, daughter of James Gould and heiress to Sir Thomas Browne of Hospital.

The structure itself tells a fascinating architectural story. Originally measuring approximately 11.2m by 8.7m, the tower house featured four storeys with a vaulted ground floor, typical of defensive architecture of its era. A 17th-century Down Survey map reveals the castle in its heyday as a multistorey tower house with an adjoining two-storey, gable-ended house built directly onto its side, likely added during the sixteenth or early seventeenth century. This residential addition, complete with its own doorway facing the tower’s entrance and a prominent lateral chimney stack, suggests a shift from purely defensive to more comfortable domestic living arrangements.

Today, only two severely ruined lower storeys remain beneath the vault, with the east wall, which once contained a spiral staircase in the southeast corner and mural chambers along the entrance passage, largely collapsed. The castle’s decline mirrors the fortunes of its final recorded owner, R. Ingoldesbye of Ballybricken Castle, who was attainted by Parliament at Dublin in 1689, marking the end of an era for this once-prominent stronghold. Despite its ruinous state, Ballybricken Court continues to stand as a testament to the complex layers of conquest, settlement, and adaptation that characterise Ireland’s medieval and early modern history.