Whilst the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map clearly marks a T-shaped fortification at this location, visitors today will find no physical trace of any defensive structure whatsoever. The site offers no crumbling walls, no overgrown foundations, not even scattered stones to hint at what might once have stood here.

What makes this absence particularly curious is the complete lack of local memory surrounding the supposed castle. In rural Cork, where stories of old strongholds and their inhabitants typically pass down through generations, Ballyourane draws a blank. No tales of sieges, no family legends, no explanations for its disappearance; just an empty field where cartographers insisted a castle should be. Archaeological surveys conducted by Healy in 1988 confirmed this puzzling void, finding neither physical remains nor oral tradition to support the map’s confident assertion.

The case of Ballyourane Castle raises fascinating questions about the reliability of historical mapping and the processes by which structures vanish from both the landscape and collective memory. Was this a cartographer’s error that became accepted fact, or did a structure once stand here that was so thoroughly dismantled that even its stones were carted away for other building projects? The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, first published in 1992 and updated through ongoing research, continues to list this phantom fortification, preserving the mystery for future investigators to puzzle over.