The site’s importance dates back to at least 1154, when the fort of Dún Iomain, built by the High King Turlough O’Conor, was burnt by his rival Muirchartach Ua Lochlainn. After the Anglo-Norman invasion, the O’Finaghty clan who controlled the territory west of the Suck were dispossessed in the 13th century. Adam Staunton erected a castle here in 1232, likely an earthwork fortification, though it lasted barely a year before Felim O’Conor destroyed it in 1233. A more permanent structure arose in 1283 under John de Stanford, which subsequently passed through the hands of the Berminghams before the Mac David Burkes claimed it around 1310, establishing it as their power base.

The castle changed hands frequently during medieval conflicts; Aodh Mac an Abbot O’Conor captured it in 1400, and while it may have originally been an earthen ringwork, the Burkes likely rebuilt it in stone during the fifteenth century. Following the Cromwellian conquest of the 1650s, the dispossessed Burkes may have transformed the medieval fortress into a more comfortable fortified house in the early 17th century, possibly inspired by their nearby castle at Glinsk in County Galway. The King family of Boyle leased it to the Caulfields in 1668, who eventually purchased it outright in 1733 and remained in residence until 1920, adding a western wing and decorative crenellations in 1855.

Today’s structure presents as a substantial rectangular building measuring roughly 24.5 metres east to west and 15 metres north to south, rising three storeys with an attic above a basement. The architectural details include rectangular windows with square hood mouldings and a distinctive recessed central bay on both north and south facades, featuring an arch over the second floor reminiscent of Bunratty Castle in County Clare. Though the corner machicolations visible in a 1792 engraving have since disappeared, the castle retains its imposing character, enhanced by fine 19th century plasterwork that was carefully restored in the 1990s. Since 1939, when the Divine Word Missionaries acquired the property, it has served religious purposes and now functions as a diocesan retreat centre for Elphin, with the medieval church ruins still visible about 170 metres to the east.