Bawn, Durra Big, Co. Wexford
Standing on a south-facing slope in the foothills of Forth Mountain, the castle at Durra Big has largely vanished into history, leaving behind only a solitary corner tower from its protective bawn wall.
Bawn, Durra Big, Co. Wexford
This cylindrical structure, measuring 4.3 metres across internally and rising to a height of 4.7 metres, offers a glimpse into the defensive architecture that once guarded this County Wexford site. Built across two storeys, the tower features four gun loops at ground level; strategic openings that would have allowed defenders to fire upon approaching threats whilst remaining protected behind thick stone walls.
The tower’s construction reveals careful medieval engineering, with four corbels jutting from the walls to support the first floor and the upper walls corbelling inward, possibly to form a vaulted ceiling. These architectural details suggest this was more than a simple defensive position; it was part of a larger fortified complex that likely extended eastward from where the tower now stands alone at the edge of a modern farm complex.
Though time has claimed the main castle and most of the bawn, this remaining tower serves as a tangible connection to Ireland’s turbulent past when such fortifications dotted the landscape. The gun loops, particularly, speak to a period when traditional castle defences were being adapted to meet the threat of early firearms, marking this as a structure from the later medieval or early modern period when warfare was evolving rapidly across Ireland.





