What remains today is a stretch of wall running north to south, measuring nearly 5 metres in length and rising to about 4 metres in height. The wall, roughly 1.5 metres thick, shows signs of its defensive purpose with a slight base batter visible on its western side at the southern end, though time has worn away most other distinguishing features.

This fortification is sometimes referred to as the Castle of the Roches, a name that connects it to one of the prominent Anglo-Norman families who held considerable power in medieval Cork. The Roches, who arrived in Ireland following the Norman invasion, established numerous strongholds throughout the county, and this particular site likely served as one of their defensive outposts or tower houses during the turbulent centuries of Norman and Gaelic conflict.

While the surviving masonry might seem unremarkable compared to grander castles elsewhere in Ireland, these weathered stones offer a tangible link to the complex history of land ownership and power struggles that shaped rural Cork. The castle’s position on relatively flat ground, rather than a more defensible hilltop location, suggests it may have served as much for asserting territorial control and collecting rents as for military defence, typical of many later medieval fortifications in Ireland.