This defensive enclosure represents a typical example of the fortified homesteads that once dotted the Irish landscape during the plantation period, when such structures provided essential protection for settlers and their livestock.

A substantial bawn wall extends west-southwest from the fortified house for approximately 40 metres. Standing roughly 4 metres high and 1.2 metres thick, the wall is now heavily covered in ivy and shows signs of damage, particularly where locals likely removed dressed stone from the embrasures over the centuries. These openings would have originally served as defensive positions, allowing defenders to fire upon attackers whilst remaining protected behind the wall’s mass.

About 60 metres southwest of the fortified house stands a tower house that may have originally occupied the southwest corner of the bawn, though no traces of the connecting wall remain visible today. The original defensive layout has been further obscured by a later walled garden, measuring approximately 75 metres from east-northeast to west-southwest and 35 metres from north-northwest to south-southeast, which now occupies much of what would have been the bawn’s interior space. This transformation from military fortification to domestic garden reflects the changing needs and security concerns of the site’s inhabitants over time.