This poorly preserved late 17th-century house was likely built on the site of an earlier Mac Coghlan castle, which gets a mention in the Annals of the Four Masters for the year 1556. The L-shaped structure measures approximately 29.7 metres east to west and 28 metres north to south, with walls about 0.8 metres thick. The building rises three storeys high with an attic level above, lit by two small windows flanking the chimney flue on the western gable.

The house displays some interesting architectural features that hint at its former grandeur. A gabled projecting tower extends from the north wall, directly opposite where the south door once stood; this tower originally housed the staircase, though it’s now destroyed and features a later brick-lined, round-arched window. All the windows are large, rectangular, and flat-headed. The western end of the house runs on an east-west axis whilst the eastern end, only two storeys high, is oriented north to south, with a later structure added to the east end of the north wall. Three Jacobean-style chimney stacks constructed from brick crown the western gable, fed by an ingenious system of spiral chimney flues from all the fireplaces, which converge into one central stack. This arrangement means all the fireplaces sit off-centre on their respective walls.

Archaeological evidence suggests there may have been a bawn wall to the south of the house, which would have provided additional fortification typical of such properties during turbulent times. The site has been documented in various historical sources including Cooke’s work from 1875, O’Flanagan’s volumes from 1933, and Garner’s research from 1985, with the ITA Survey of 1942 noting the probable connection to the earlier Mac Coghlan castle. Today, whilst the building stands in ruins, it remains an evocative reminder of Offaly’s layered history, where 17th-century plantation architecture was built quite literally upon the foundations of earlier Gaelic strongholds.