What remains today is a curious blend of medieval fortification and Victorian renovation; a late 19th-century building that incorporates what may be the bones of a 16th-century fortified house. The castle’s history is as murky as the river waters that surround it, with local tradition claiming it as a Fitzgerald stronghold, though by 1640 it had passed into the hands of James Walsh.

When the antiquarian Samuel Lewis visited in the 1830s, he described a square, battlemented building with distinctive architectural features including a pointed doorway and a window flanked by a carved stone head. A few years later, around 1840, John O’Donovan recorded more precise measurements during the Ordnance Survey, noting an oblong structure roughly 14.3 metres east to west, 10.3 metres north to south, and standing about 12.1 metres high. These dimensions suggest something more substantial than a simple tower house, yet perhaps not quite grand enough to be considered a proper castle.

The building’s true nature remains something of a puzzle for historians. While it carries the name ‘castle’ and boasts the requisite battlements, architectural historians Maurice Craig and William Garner suggested it might be better classified as a fortified house; a dwelling that borrowed defensive elements from military architecture whilst serving primarily as a residence. Whatever its original purpose, the structure has survived through centuries of change, from medieval stronghold to Georgian-era curiosity to its current incarnation as part of a Victorian building, each era leaving its mark on this riverside sentinel.