The farmhouse, now in ruins, was built directly on the site of a 17th-century plantation castle, incorporating parts of the earlier structure into its own walls. Most notably, the back wall of the cottage is actually a section of the original castle’s bawn wall, a fortified enclosure that once protected the castle and its inhabitants.

The site retains impressive defensive features from its castle days, including four circular corner towers and sections of the bawn wall, all dating from the 1600s. These structures are peppered with gun loops; narrow openings designed for musket fire that allowed defenders to protect all four walls of the enclosure. The strategic placement of these defensive features suggests this was a plantation castle, built during the period when English and Scottish settlers were establishing fortified homes across Ireland.

Later additions from the late 18th or early 19th century reveal how the site evolved after the castle’s destruction. The round arched gateway, topped with a triangular pediment and decorative spiral finials, was likely added by the Georgian farmhouse occupants, transforming what had been a military fortification into something more domestic and fashionable for its time. Today, these different historical layers exist side by side, creating a unique architectural puzzle where defensive towers from the plantation era stand alongside Georgian embellishments, all gradually returning to the Offaly landscape.