The structure gained historical significance through a 1609 land grant to Sir Robert Nugent of Walshestown, which provides a fascinating glimpse into the estate’s former grandeur. According to the grant, Nugent received not just a castle and fortified bawn, but an extensive property including a large orchard, twenty messuages and gardens, a watermill, and vast acreage comprising 480 acres of arable land, 100 acres of meadow, 200 acres of pasture, and various woodlands, marshes, bogs and moors.

The grant also included fishing rights to Lough Ennell itself, described in the document as “the great lough called Loughenia otherwise Loughenill”, along with three islands within it: the Great Island (now Dysart Island) measuring two acres, Robbins Island at half an acre, and Croincha Island at one acre. The estate boundaries stretched to meet the lands of Dysart and Kilcowle, encompassing the river and its fishing rights that ran through the manor lands in the area known as Tolchane-Even.

Today, aerial photographs reveal numerous earthworks in the vicinity of where the ruin appears on historical maps, suggesting these may be remnants of the original bawn fortifications and orchards mentioned in the 1609 grant. The site sits in relation to several surviving landmarks; Kilcooley House stands 470 metres to the west, whilst Dysart Island lies 750 metres eastward across the lough, and Croincha Island can be found 720 metres to the south. These surviving features help piece together the landscape of what was once Sir Robert Nugent’s substantial early 17th-century estate.