This circular tower house, built sometime between 1574 and 1583, represents a relatively late addition to Clare’s medieval fortifications. The castle first appears in historical records as part of Sir Turlough O’Brien of Ennistymon’s estate in 1583, though it’s notably absent from earlier 16th-century lists of Clare castles from 1570 and 1574.

The tower itself is a modest but fascinating structure, with an internal diameter of 4.25 metres and walls 1.35 metres thick, constructed from roughly coursed undressed stones bound with yellow mortar. Though now partially collapsed and surviving to only about 2.5 stories of its original height, the castle still reveals intriguing defensive features. The ground floor contains an oval shot-hole and a gun loop, both set within inwardly splaying embrasures; classic defensive elements that allowed defenders to fire on attackers whilst remaining protected. Above these embrasures, remnants of a corbelled roof indicate the former presence of a vaulted ceiling. Historical photographs taken by Dr G. U. MacNamara around 1900 show the castle was in better condition then, with traces of vaults above both the ground and first floors, an intramural staircase running anti-clockwise, and according to Westropp’s contemporary account, a machicolation above the ground-floor door.

The castle’s ownership passed through various hands over the centuries, belonging to Fernandus Mac Felem in 1641 before being granted to James Aylmer and Henry Ivers following the Cromwellian confiscations. By 1837, Lewis’s topographical dictionary records it as already being in ruins. The tower forms the southern corner of a rectangular bawn and sits at the southern edge of an extensive multiperiod field system covering approximately eight square kilometres, suggesting this was once the centre of a significant agricultural estate. Some historians, including FitzPatrick, have suggested it may also have served as an O’Loughlin residence, adding another layer to its complex history.