Today, visitors will find little more than a grass and tree-covered mound of unworked stone, roughly 22 metres in diameter and rising less than 3 metres high. A curving line of foundation stones, barely visible beneath their blanket of grass, traces a path from the northwest to the east across the mound; the only hint of the structure that once stood here.

This castle has a documented connection to the turbulent 16th century, when it served as home to Sean na Maighe O’Kelly, a member of the powerful O’Kelly clan who dominated much of east Galway during this period. The O’Kellys were one of the great Gaelic families of Connacht, and their various branches controlled numerous castles and tower houses throughout the region. Sean na Maighe, whose nickname translates roughly as “Sean of the Plain”, would have occupied this stronghold during an era of constant territorial disputes and shifting allegiances between Gaelic lords and English administrators.

Local tradition holds that when the railway was constructed in the 19th century, builders helped themselves to the castle’s stones for their new project; a common fate for many of Ireland’s medieval ruins during the industrial age. This practical recycling of building materials means that fragments of the old O’Kelly stronghold may now form part of the railway embankments and bridges that cross this part of Galway, a peculiar form of architectural afterlife for a once-proud fortress.