The castle’s fragmentary walls stand within what was once a substantial rectangular bawn, now reduced to low earthen banks and shallow ditches that trace a defensive perimeter from the north, around the east, and down to the south. These defensive earthworks, clearly visible in aerial photographs from 2011, include wall footings along the southeastern sides and the remnants of small rectangular buildings, one positioned directly on the line of the outer ditch.

Local folklore preserved in the Schools’ Collection from the late 1930s speaks of fortifications, a cave, and an immense graveyard where bishops were supposedly buried, alongside claims of a Danish fort adjoining the castle. While the Danish connection is likely fanciful, the physical evidence does reveal a complex site with multiple enclosures. Beyond the main defensive circuit, a smaller rectangular enclosure lies to the southeast, with possible traces of another to the northeast. To the northwest, a circular area bounded by a low bank of earth and stones with its own external ditch suggests either an earlier ringfort incorporated into the castle’s defences or an additional outlying fortification.

Just 300 metres to the south-southwest lies a ringfort and an area marked as ‘Old Town’ on Ordnance Survey maps, hinting at a broader medieval settlement pattern in this part of Westmeath. The castle itself, though now largely ruined, once commanded this strategic position above the river valley, its bawn encompassing not just defensive structures but likely domestic buildings, storage facilities, and all the infrastructure needed to support a fortified household in medieval Ireland.