What began as an Anglo-Norman masonry castle around 1317, built shortly after lands were granted to the de Wogan family, evolved through centuries of conflict and changing fortunes into a complex amalgamation of medieval fortress, 17th-century fortified house, and late 18th-century mansion. The site offers panoramic views from north to west-southwest, overlooking an ancient enclosure some 500 metres to the northeast, with sections of the historic Pale Boundary Ditch visible in the distance.

The castle’s tumultuous history is etched into its stones; it weathered an attack in 1454 and was fortified again in 1641 during Ireland’s Confederate Wars. The earliest surviving structure, tucked into the northeast angle of the complex, reveals the bones of 14th-century military architecture: a rectangular building with walls nearly two metres thick, featuring a barrel-vaulted ceiling over three metres high. Original arrow loops pierce the south wall, whilst blocked doorways and windows hint at various modifications over the centuries. The ground floor’s brick vaulting and inserted back-to-back fireplaces speak to later domestic improvements, whilst traces of a blocked twin-light window at second-floor level preserve echoes of medieval grandeur.

By the late 1780s, the old castle had been absorbed into an ambitious Georgian mansion, its three-storey south-facing front featuring an elegant arcade at ground level. Today, render and plaster obscure many architectural details, particularly from the 17th-century phase, but careful observation reveals how each generation adapted and built upon the work of their predecessors. A gatehouse stands slightly uphill to the northwest, whilst low earthworks visible in aerial photographs mark what were likely formal garden features from the mansion’s Georgian heyday. The site remains a palimpsest of Irish history, where medieval defensive architecture, post-Reformation fortification, and Georgian elegance merge into a single, evocative ruin.