This limestone tower house, measuring roughly 10.6 metres north to south and 10.4 metres east to west, has been reduced to its ground floor foundations, its roughly coursed rubble walls still impressive at 2.1 metres thick. The castle’s original entrance was positioned centrally in the western wall, leading visitors past a southern guardroom into a northern lobby that housed the mural stairs and provided access to the main chamber.

The principal ground floor chamber, a rectangular space of 5.3 by 4.3 metres, would have been dimly lit by three narrow arrow loops set within wide embrasures. These defensive windows, typical of tower houses built for both residence and fortification, featured carefully worked details; the surviving southern window shows chamfered external jambs and internal rebates finished with punch tooling, evidence of the skilled craftsmanship that went into even the most functional elements of the structure.

By the time of Cromwell’s Civil Survey in 1654 to 1656, the castle was already showing its age, described rather poetically as ‘a stump of a Castle inhabited and out of repaire with old buildings’. Despite its deteriorating condition, it remained occupied and in the hands of the Cantwell family; William Cantwell of Mokarky and John Cantwell of Ballymckady are recorded as the proprietors, both noted as ‘Irish Papists’ in the survey’s typically blunt fashion. Their continued residence in this crumbling fortress speaks to the turbulent times of 17th century Ireland, when even a ruined castle offered more security than the uncertain political landscape beyond its walls.