This sixteenth-century O’Kennedy stronghold belonged to Brian Ua Cinneide Fionn, Chieftain of Ormond, who died in 1588. By the time of the Civil Survey in 1654-6, it was already described as ‘an old ruined castle & bawne of Leackeene the walls onely standing’, though the complex had clearly seen better days under its 1640 proprietor, Donogh Kenedy. The site encompasses not just the main tower and its irregular-shaped bawn, but also a watermill immediately to the south, remnants of a deserted settlement, and a later seventeenth and eighteenth-century house built directly onto the eastern wall of the bawn.

The tower itself is a masterclass in defensive architecture, entered through a two-centred doorway on the south wall that’s overlooked by both a murder-hole and the remains of a machicolation. Inside, the ground floor features large wall niches and gives access to mural stairs in the southeast angle. The first floor boasts a well-preserved fireplace with joggled voussoirs, whilst above it lies a vaulted entresol accessed through a passage in the north wall. The second-floor great hall showcases the castle’s more refined side, with a beautiful traceried window and two-centred arcading featuring a weathered carved head in relief on the north wall. At battlement level, fine crow-stepped gables typical of sixteenth-century architectural style crown the structure, alongside diagonally opposite bartizans at the northwest and southeast angles.

The bawn walls tell their own story of defensive innovation and daily life. The main entrance consists of a round-arched gateway with punch-dressed limestone jambs at the centre of the south wall, with evidence suggesting it once supported a gatehouse. A secondary entrance on the west wall features a two-centred doorway with hanging-eyes for a two-part swing door, leading to a paved walkway. Various architectural details hint at the bawn’s former structures: wall-footings of a small circular tower protrude from the south wall, whilst a large wall niche, gun loop, and curiously positioned slop-stone that directed water inward rather than out suggest a lean-to structure once occupied the northwest corner. The entire complex stands as National Monument No. 378, a remarkable survival of Gaelic lordship architecture in North Tipperary.