The remains consist primarily of a tower that was cleverly incorporated into a country house during the Victorian era, creating a unique architectural timeline that spans several centuries.

The original tower, which forms the western end of the later house, retains its north, south and west walls standing two storeys high. These walls enclose a compact space measuring 5.4 metres north to south and 5.7 metres east to west, with thick walls of approximately 1.6 metres featuring the defensive characteristics typical of Irish tower houses: an external base batter and rounded corners for added strength. While the Victorians added two more storeys and replaced the windows with their own designs, careful observation reveals the tower’s medieval origins in the form of corbels set into the north and south walls between the ground and first floor levels.

This was once a stronghold of the O’Keeffe family, one of the many Gaelic Irish families who built fortified towers throughout Cork during the late medieval period. Local tradition holds that the castle met its demise during the Cromwellian wars of the 1650s, when many such fortifications across Ireland were systematically destroyed. The later country house built around and over the ruins represents a common 19th-century practice of incorporating romantic medieval remains into new residences, though time has now reduced both phases of construction to evocative ruins overlooking the river valley.