The site comprises an enclosed courtyard filled with derelict farm buildings, with the main house positioned at the southern end, featuring distinctive circular towers at its southeast and southwest corners. The most substantial surviving element is the southwest tower, which rises four storeys high on walls 1.8 metres thick, though its medieval character has been somewhat obscured by 19th-century renovations including brick-built windows, doors, and a coating of plaster topped with crenellations.

The interior of this tower reveals a fascinating architectural puzzle. The ground floor chamber, approximately 6 metres in diameter, is roofed by an unusual semi-domical vault and contains various recesses, including what appears to be a fireplace on the eastern side. A 1905 description mentions a doorway near the fireplace leading to a passage that curved behind it, though this feature cannot be located today. Attached to the tower’s north wall is a slender square tower containing an intricate system of mural stairs that once connected multiple levels and chambers; these stairs wind up to the second and third floors whilst also descending to a now inaccessible chamber within the courtyard’s south wall. Beyond the courtyard, additional medieval structures cling to the cliff edge, including a semicircular tower and the ruins of what was likely a rectangular tower, both probably part of the original castle’s defensive enclosure.

This was the castle of the Barry family, who were granted rights to hold a fair and market at Buttevant as early as 1234. By 1364, they held the property as tenants of the bishop, described in records as the ‘castle of Buttevant with its orchard and hall’. The medieval fortress had already fallen into ruin by 1750 when the antiquarian Charles Smith visited, noting that whilst the castle itself was derelict, ‘a good modern house’ had been built within its courtyard; a structure that has since joined its medieval predecessor in decay.