By the time Commonwealth surveyors arrived in 1654, they found what they described as a ‘small castle out of repair’, a far cry from whatever defensive grandeur it might once have possessed. The castle had been in the hands of Theobald Purcell in 1640, just before the tumultuous decades that would reshape Irish land ownership forever.

Today, visitors will find only fragments of what was once a modest rectangular tower house, measuring roughly 8.8 metres east to west. The sole surviving south wall, built from roughly coursed limestone rubble and standing two metres thick, offers tantalising glimpses of the castle’s original layout. A destroyed ground floor window once pierced the centre of this wall, whilst the southeastern corner preserves partial remains of what would have been a spiral staircase; a standard feature that once carried residents between the tower’s multiple floors.

These scant remains might seem unremarkable compared to Ireland’s grander castles, but Brownstown represents the more common fate of the country’s medieval fortifications. Rather than dramatic sieges or romantic decay, most of these smaller strongholds simply crumbled through neglect once their military and social purposes became obsolete. The castle’s orientation along a north to south axis and its construction from local limestone tell us it was built according to typical medieval Irish building practices, likely serving as a modest seat of local power for the Purcell family before fading into obscurity.