This tower house castle, thought to have been burnt during the 1641 rebellion, has dwindled to just a single north wall and partial east wall, yet these weathered stones still hold clues to its former grandeur. The surviving north wall, measuring 6 metres in length and 1.75 metres thick, preserves the springing of an east-west barrel vault, whilst fragments above show evidence of a small window and the eastern side of what was once a fireplace, complete with dressed stonework and chimney flue.

The castle’s history proves somewhat elusive in official records. Whilst the Down Survey maps of 1656-8 fail to depict the castle at Donycarny in Colp parish, the accompanying documentation mentions both a habitable castle and farmhouse on the site. Curiously, the Civil Survey of 1654-6 makes no mention of either building, noting only that 40 acres at Donacarney were forfeited. By 1836, the Ordnance Survey maps show just a single wall marked simply as ‘Ruin’, suggesting the castle had already fallen into significant decay by the 19th century.

The immediate surroundings hint at a once-thriving medieval settlement. A forge located at the roadside just southwest of the castle may be an original medieval structure, whilst human remains discovered approximately 25 metres southwest of the castle, first in 1964 and again in 2006 during work at the Donacarney road junction, suggest the area has a long history of habitation. These scattered pieces of evidence, combined with the castle’s surviving architectural features, paint a picture of a once-important defensive structure that fell victim to the turmoil of 17th-century Ireland.