Its history can be traced back to at least 1560, when Walter Codd of Ballyfant served as a juror, though the castle itself likely gained prominence under James Codd, who died in 1635. At his death, James held the castle and 120 acres by military service from the manor of Castletown Carne, along with a windmill on the property. The Down Survey maps from 1656;8 show a castle with an attached house in this location, and the parish terrier describes a castle, slate house and cabins at Ballyumphant, indicating a substantial settlement had grown around the fortification.

Following the Act of Settlement in 1666, the castle and 76 acres passed to Nicholas Codd of Castletown, keeping the property within the extended Codd family. The name ‘Castlepaliser’ now refers to a five-bay, two storey farmhouse about 100 metres southeast of the original castle site, which was described as ‘newly finished’ in 1780. The castle itself met an inglorious end; John O’Donovan, writing around 1840, recorded that the last remnants had been removed about 1810, likely repurposed as building material for local construction.

Today, no visible remains of the castle exist above ground level, though its location near a modern farmyard is still marked on historical Ordnance Survey maps. Archaeological testing conducted in 2003 revealed tantalising hints of the past, including a stone wall that may have been part of the castle structure and a fragment of a window sill recovered from a ditch containing post-medieval material. These modest findings serve as the only physical reminders of what was once an important local stronghold, controlling a territory that encompassed the modern townlands of Ballytra, Ballygarra, Castlepaliser, Ballyfane and Nineteen Acres.