At Drumsawry Glebe in Oldcastle parish, little more than a cairn of stones marks where a castle once stood, its north and south walls still partially visible amongst the rubble. The structure, which stretched approximately 9.4 metres east to west and 6 metres north to south, appears on the Down Survey maps from 1656-8, though its connection to Fore Abbey meant it escaped mention in the Civil Survey just a few years earlier. By 1778, both Taylor and Skinner’s map and a manuscript map in the National Library of Ireland were already showing it as a ruin, and when the Ordnance Survey mapped the area in 1836, they depicted it as a roofless shell, not even bothering to name it.

Just 10 metres south of these castle remains stands a medieval church, creating what would have been a small religious and defensive complex typical of medieval Ireland. The castle’s ownership by Fore Abbey suggests it may have served as a fortified residence for abbey officials or as a defensive outpost protecting church lands. Archaeological testing carried out in 2005 on a plot about 200 metres to the south-southwest yielded no related materials, suggesting the castle’s influence and associated settlement didn’t extend far beyond its walls.

Meanwhile, at Summerbank, another castle tells its own tale of decline. This structure fared slightly better in historical memory, at least maintaining its identity on maps longer than its counterpart at Drumsawry Glebe. Both castles serve as reminders of how quickly fortunes could change in medieval and early modern Ireland, where once-important strongholds could become nameless ruins within a few generations, their stones gradually reclaimed by the landscape they once dominated.