This crumbling structure, built from large rubble blocks with rough ashlar quoins, rises over seven metres at its southwestern corner, though only the western and partial northern walls remain standing today. The walls bear traces of their original harling, whilst the interior shows clear evidence of fire damage, suggesting the tower house met a violent end at some point in its history.

The ground floor was cleverly divided into two barrel-vaulted chambers by a cross-wall, with the vaults running north to south. Each chamber featured a single rectangular window in the north wall; the western window’s dressed stone blocks remain partially intact, revealing a narrow opening just 11 centimetres wide. At the southern end of the western wall, an intriguing architectural detail emerges: a smaller vault running east to west, supported on corbels, which likely formed a small chamber or passage near what would have been the tower house’s entrance. This feature is sometimes found in similar structures and may have served as a guardroom or storage space.

The building’s history remains tantalisingly uncertain. Whilst its location and construction suggest it could be the remains of an O’Donnell tower house, the unusually thin walls have led some experts, including archaeologist C. Manning, to propose it might instead be the ruins of an early 17th century house. An 1834 Ordnance Survey map shows the castle situated within a large polygonal enclosure, possibly the remnants of a defensive bawn, though this feature disappears from later maps. The ruins have remained remarkably unchanged since they were first sketched in the early 19th century, standing as a silent witness to centuries of Donegal’s turbulent past.