This square shaped enclosure, measuring roughly 64 metres north to south and 69 metres east to west, is defined by a water filled moat that’s still visible from the northwest around to the southeast. The moat itself, with its 5.5 metre overall width and depths reaching 1.8 metres, appears to have been recut in modern times, though its original medieval form remains clear. Modern farming has left its mark too; livestock ramps cross the moat at several points, and a contemporary causeway provides access at the southeast corner.

The site’s relationship to Fanningstown Castle, whose ruins stand in the southwest quadrant, offers intriguing possibilities for interpretation. The moat may represent the original bawn, or defensive courtyard, of the castle itself, with a public road now bisecting what was once its western quadrant. Aerial photography from 1968 and modern satellite imagery reveal cropmarks west of the road that suggest this enclosure once extended much further, possibly encompassing the entire castle complex. Alternatively, some historians propose this could be an earlier moated site that was later repurposed as the castle’s bawn, a common practice in medieval Ireland where defensive earthworks were adapted and reused across generations.

The 1654 Civil Survey provides a glimpse into the site’s post medieval condition, recording that Barnaby, Earl of Thomond, owned these lands where stood ‘an oulde Ruinous Castle & six Cabbins’. Today, a post 1700 field drain runs through the centre of the castle site, evidence of the agricultural improvements that transformed these ancient fortifications into productive farmland. The L shaped cropmark visible on modern orthoimages hints at the western boundary of this once formidable defensive complex, now peacefully integrated into the rural Limerick landscape.