What visitors see today is a fortified house from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century that has been substantially altered by Victorian romantics who added theatrical battlements and rendered walls in the nineteenth century. Yet beneath these later additions, the bones of the original defensive structure remain clearly visible, from the distinctive base batter on the north wall to the narrow defensive slit windows on the south.

The fortified house was built as a rectangular block, three storeys high with walls over two metres thick, incorporating what may be remnants of an earlier O’Kennedy tower house at its northwest corner. The ground floor reveals remarkable barrel vaulted chambers, with the main vault running north to south and two smaller vaults oriented east to west. These vaults still display evidence of the original wicker centring used in their construction, whilst a large circular stone trough has been carved directly from the bedrock in the northernmost chamber. The defensive features are particularly well preserved; a mural staircase winds upward from just inside the main southern entrance, and directly above this entrance, a small passage once led to a murder hole that would have allowed defenders to attack anyone who breached the main door.

By the time of the Civil Survey in 1654, the castle was already described as ruined with only the walls and bawn remaining, along with a garden and eight cottages. The formal walled garden shown on the first Ordnance Survey maps still exists to the south and may date from the original construction. Despite centuries of occupation and modification, including the addition of larger windows and a southeast wing during the Victorian era, the essential character of this fortified house endures. The original drain holes from the destroyed wall walk are still visible, the first and second floors retain their wooden ceilings supported on stone corbels, and small chambers tucked into the northwest angle at each level speak to the complex defensive planning of its builders.