The castle’s name likely honours Shane More mac Elliot, an important tenant and servant of the White Earl of Ormond who appears in several documents from the 1430s and 1440s. Local historian Manning suggests Shane More may have built the tower house as part of Gowran’s outer defences, positioning it to guard an important southern approach road. The alternative theory, that it was named after John, the sixth Earl of Ormond who died around 1477, seems less convincing given the documentary evidence.

Built from roughly coursed limestone rubble with cut quoins, the tower measures 10 metres north to south and 8.3 metres east to west, with walls 1.5 metres thick. Its most striking defensive features include a high, tapering base-batter about 2.5 metres tall, three murder-holes protecting various entrances, and a pointed doorway on the east wall that once housed an iron yett (a hinged iron grill gate). The Rev. James Graves sketched this entrance in 1852, carefully recording the sockets for hanging irons and bolt holes. Inside, a mural stair rises through the eastern wall, connecting all floors whilst defensive loops and narrow windows pierce the thick walls at strategic points. The ground floor contains four double-splayed loops for light and defence, plus wall cupboards tucked into the southwest corner.

The upper floors reveal the castle’s dual purpose as both fortress and residence. The second floor, resting on a well-preserved stone vault, features window seats and an elaborate fireplace with a sloping canopy that once rested on seven joggled voussoirs, its chimney flue projecting externally on corbels. The third floor boasts the castle’s finest window; a four-light opening with ogee heads and hollow spandrels on the north wall, alongside other single and two-light windows. At parapet level, a mural chamber runs along the north wall, featuring an unusual double cruciform loop with rounded terminals. Local tradition knows the narrow platform above this chamber as the ‘leaba chaol’ or ‘narrow bed’, accessed by projecting stone steps that allowed defenders to maintain watch over the surrounding demesne. Though the parapet and machicolations have largely crumbled away, their corbel supports remain, silent witnesses to centuries of Kilkenny’s turbulent history.