This weathered west corner turret, rising two storeys high, is all that survives of a castle that dates back to the early 17th century. Built from roughly coursed masonry with carefully dressed corner stones, the structure features a lintelled entrance on its eastern side at ground level, with another doorway on the first floor. The interior dimensions reveal a modest space, measuring 3.4 metres in length and 3 metres in width, whilst plain square window openings on the southern side would have once provided light to the tower’s chambers.

The castle’s origins can be traced to 1601, when according to the Exchequer Inquisitions for County Dublin, Alderman Patrick Browne and his wife received permission to construct a castle on the lands of Irishtown. This wasn’t merely a defensive structure; by 1654, the Civil Survey recorded it as a habitable house, suggesting it served as a comfortable residence for the Browne family. The building appears on the Down Survey maps of 1655 to 1656, marking its significance in the local landscape during that period.

Whilst today only the corner turret remains, historical records paint a picture of the castle’s former glory. A drawing by the antiquarian Gabriel Beranger from 1772 depicts the structure as a twin gabled towerhouse, showing what the complete building looked like before centuries of decay and demolition reduced it to its current state. Now surrounded by suburban homes rather than the open countryside it once commanded, this fragment of Irishtown’s castle serves as a tangible link to Dublin’s medieval past, quietly persisting amidst the rhythms of modern life.