Built from carefully cut ashlar blocks, the rectangular tower originally measured roughly 12.8 metres by 9.9 metres and sat within a polygonal defensive wall, or bawn, complete with square turrets at its corners. Today, the northwest wall remains the most intact, rising three storeys high and offering visitors a glimpse into the castle’s sophisticated defensive architecture, including narrow round openings for muskets or arrows, and perfectly preserved features like a bartizan and twin ogee-headed windows that speak to both military necessity and architectural refinement.

The castle’s interior reveals the ingenuity of its medieval builders, with remnants of a spiral staircase tucked into the eastern corner and various chambers distributed across its levels. The second storey holds particular intrigue; above a splayed window embrasure, traces of a vaulted ceiling survive, and within the northeast wall lies the remains of a secret chamber, cleverly illuminated by a tiny window. The builders even incorporated a garderobe, essentially a medieval toilet, into the upper northeast wall, with waste channels that emerge at ground level through two openings; a reminder that even defensive structures needed to address everyday human needs.

The Mac Donnells held this strategic stronghold from at least 1574, maintaining ownership for nearly three centuries until the Victorian era when Sir Benjamin Guinness, of brewing fame, purchased the property. The surrounding bawn underwent various rebuilding phases over the centuries and still contains three gun loops west of the tower house, adaptations that likely date from later conflicts. A separate building within the bawn walls, measuring about 11.5 by 5.9 metres internally and featuring fireplaces in both its north and south gables, hints at later domestic additions to the complex. Now designated as National Monument number 243 and in state care, these evocative ruins continue to draw those interested in Ireland’s turbulent past and the families who shaped it.