The ground drops sharply to the west where the river flows from south to north, creating a natural defensive position that would have been advantageous to its medieval inhabitants. Today, only fragments of this once formidable structure remain; the western wall stands two storeys high, whilst portions of the north and south walls have largely crumbled away. A farm building now leans against what’s left of the southern wall, giving the site a rather melancholic air of abandonment mixed with agricultural practicality.

The castle’s history can be traced back to at least 1508, when the Lord of ‘Kildonoke’ appears in records as a suitor to the Earl of Ormond. By 1640, the property belonged to John Prendergast of Kildonogy, described in contemporary documents as an ‘Irish Papist’. When the Civil Survey was conducted between 1654 and 1656, the castle was already described as ‘a little castle unroofed being wast without any improvemt’, suggesting it had fallen into disrepair relatively quickly, perhaps during the tumultuous years of the Cromwellian conquest.

Built from sandstone rubble with rounded quoins at the northwest corner and a protective base batter extending five metres high, the surviving western wall offers glimpses of the castle’s original design. At ground level, a large embrasure contains a narrow, round headed window, whilst the first floor features a more elaborate ogee headed window, decorated with vertical lines of pock tooling and drafted margins; a small flourish of medieval craftsmanship in an otherwise utilitarian structure. The wall measures a substantial two metres thick, typical of defensive architecture of the period, though a significant crack at the southwestern angle now threatens what remains of this historical remnant.