The site appears on the 1835 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a faint rectangular outline, roughly 10 metres north to south and 5 metres east to west, marked in italics as ‘Site of Old Castle’. By the time subsequent editions were published, even this ghostly notation had vanished; the earlier Down Survey maps of 1656-8 show no trace of any fortification here either.

Local historian Davies suggested in 1948 that this vanished stronghold likely belonged to Sir John Elliott, who received the estate of Kilcronehan during the Ulster Plantation in the early 1600s. The Plantation brought English and Scottish settlers to Ulster, granting them confiscated Irish lands in an attempt to establish Protestant control over the region. Elliott’s castle would have served as both a residence and a defensive position during this turbulent period of Irish history, when newly arrived planters needed fortified homes to protect against potential uprising from displaced Irish families.

Today, nothing remains visible above ground; the castle has been completely reclaimed by the landscape. Only the careful notations of 19th-century surveyors and the detective work of local historians preserve any record of this forgotten Plantation-era fortress. The site serves as a reminder of how thoroughly time and nature can erase even substantial stone buildings, leaving only map markings and speculation about the lives once lived within these phantom walls.