This fortified residence, typical of the defensive structures built by Gaelic and Anglo-Norman families between the 15th and 17th centuries, would have served as both a home and stronghold for a local landowning family. While the specific history of this particular tower house remains somewhat obscure, its construction follows the pattern of hundreds of similar structures that once dotted the Irish landscape during a period when local warfare and cattle raiding were common occurrences.

The tower house at Enagh West follows the classic design of these defensive dwellings: a rectangular stone structure rising several storeys high, with thick walls capable of withstanding siege and assault. Like most tower houses in County Clare, it would have featured a vaulted ground floor for storage, with the main hall on the first floor and private chambers above. The narrow windows, designed more for defence than light, and the remains of features such as murder holes and machicolations, speak to an era when even the homes of the wealthy needed to double as fortresses. These buildings represented a compromise between comfort and security, offering their inhabitants a reasonable standard of living whilst providing protection in uncertain times.

Today, the tower house stands as a monument to a vanished way of life, when local chieftains and minor nobility controlled small territories across Clare. The surrounding landscape would have looked quite different in its heyday; the tower would have been accompanied by a bawn wall enclosing outbuildings, and the area would have bustled with the activity of a working estate. According to research by Risteárd Ua Cróinín and Martin Breen in their comprehensive survey of Clare’s castles and tower houses, structures like this one at Enagh West formed an integral part of the county’s medieval defensive network, each one marking a centre of local power and agricultural production that helped shape the social and political landscape of Gaelic Ireland.