This modest fortification, tucked into a slight col between higher ground to the northwest and southeast, doesn’t appear on the Down Survey maps of 1656;8, those meticulous records of Irish landholdings compiled after Cromwell’s conquest. Yet we know from the Civil Survey of 1654;6 that it existed, already described as ‘a Ruinous Castle’ sitting on 70 acres owned by Sir Richard Barnwall of Crickstown.

Today, only the ground floor of this rectangular structure survives, measuring roughly 10.7 metres northwest to southeast and 7 metres northeast to southwest. Visitors can still make out traces of barrel vaulting attached to the northwest wall, architectural features that hint at the building’s former strength and sophistication. The castle’s position in the landscape, with lower ground to the west and east, would have offered its inhabitants strategic views across the surrounding countryside whilst providing natural defences.

Sir Richard Barnwall, who owned the castle in 1640, was no small landowner; he also possessed Moylagh Castle elsewhere in the parish, suggesting he was a figure of considerable local importance. The fact that Ballinlough Castle was already ruinous by the 1650s raises intriguing questions about its history. Was it abandoned during the upheavals of the Confederate Wars, or had it fallen into disrepair even earlier? Whatever its fate, these weathered stones in Moylagh parish continue to mark a place where someone once thought it worth building a fortress, a silent testament to centuries of Irish history written in mortar and stone.