This square keep, with its characteristically narrow windows, once formed part of a more extensive defensive complex that has since vanished into history. When the Victorian travel writers Mr and Mrs S.C. Hall visited in the early 1840s, they found the tower still accompanied by remnants of its original bawn; an enclosing wall that would have protected the tower’s occupants and their livestock from raiders.

The Halls recorded their impressions of what they called Carrig-a-Hooly, noting the tower’s formidable appearance and its “savage strength”. They observed traces of a projecting barbican at one corner and described how the entire structure appeared to be protected by a strong surrounding wall, within which a small circular tower had been built. Their account provides valuable evidence of defensive features that have since disappeared completely, leaving only the main tower house to tell its story.

Today, visitors to Rockfleet will find only the imposing square keep itself, its few small windows still peering out across the Mayo landscape. The enclosing wall and circular tower that the Halls documented have left no visible trace, swept away by time, weather, or human intervention sometime after the 1840s. What remains is a testament to medieval Irish defensive architecture; a stone sentinel that once formed the heart of a more complex fortification, now standing alone against the Atlantic winds.