The ruins of Clarabricken Castle rise to about first floor level today, but historical records paint a picture of its former significance. The Down Survey maps from 1655-6 show the castle prominently marked in both the barony of Gowran and parish maps of Churchclara, with accompanying documents describing it as “a ffaire Castle in repaire” under the proprietorship of Henry Archer in 1640. By 1659, the castle had passed to a Cromwellian settler named Jacob Cornock, and records show Richard Boyle paying hearth tax for the property in 1664.

What remains today is a rectangular tower measuring roughly 17 metres north to south and 11.6 metres east to west, built from roughly coursed limestone rubble with substantial quoins still visible at the southwest corner. The surviving walls, about a metre thick, include most of the northern wall standing to around 4 metres high, though it’s breached at its eastern end, along with fragments of the southern and western walls. The entrance appears to have been located at the northern end of the north wall, and a garderobe chute projection can still be seen on the western wall. The interior is now filled with collapsed masonry and debris, with some cut stone fragments, including pieces of a window, scattered around the farmyard.

The castle’s elongated rectangular footprint suggests this wasn’t a typical Irish tower house but rather what architectural historians call a “long, low stronghouse” or fortified house, a style that became more common in the later medieval period. When the antiquarian William Carrigan visited in 1905, he noted that considerable fragments still stood to a height of 30 feet with walls 5 feet thick; time and neglect have since reduced the structure considerably. Today, with a modern shed built against its western wall and farm life continuing around it, Clarabricken Castle serves as a tangible link to the complex history of land ownership and fortification in medieval Kilkenny.