These faint earthworks might mark the remains of a bawn, a fortified enclosure that would have protected the castle’s inhabitants and livestock, or they could represent the footprint of Castle Erkin itself. The structure was completely levelled at some point in history, leaving behind only these ghostly impressions in the landscape.

The castle’s story begins in 1237 when a Scottish merchant named Erkin received a license to trade in Ireland, lending his name to both the castle and the surrounding area. The site, sometimes referred to as Castlelurkan in Elizabethan documents, passed through several prominent families over the centuries. The Burke family held it for generations; James Burke owned it at his death in 1604, passing it to his son Walter in 1630. By 1638, Edmund Lord Castleconnell possessed the property, and the Burkes continued their association with the land through the tumultuous 1650s.

The castle’s ownership became contested after the Cromwellian period. In 1662, Captain Alexander Downing and his wife Una, daughter of the late owner Thomas Burke, laid claim to the property. Eventually, part of the estate was confirmed to Ulysses Burgh, marking another shift in the complex web of Irish land ownership that characterised the post-Cromwellian settlement. Today, visitors to the site need a keen eye and perhaps some local knowledge to spot the subtle undulations in the field that mark where this piece of Irish history once stood.