Originally marked on the 1837 Ordnance Survey map as a rectangular building running east to west, the castle stood on a gravel ridge alongside other medieval features of the landscape. Just 260 metres to the southeast, you’ll find a church and graveyard, whilst a ringfort sits 55 metres to the south, creating a cluster of historical sites that speak to centuries of continuous settlement in the area.

By 1910, the Ordnance Survey maps were already marking this as merely a ‘Castle (Site of)’, indicating its deterioration over the decades. The final blow came in 1977 when earthworks at the site were bulldozed, erasing most physical traces of the castle. A year before this destruction, inspectors from the National Monuments Service documented that only a small section of the southwest corner remained standing, reaching about two metres in height. They also recorded an extensive series of earthworks; low banks of earth and stone extending north, east and south from the castle site, which may represent the remains of a deserted settlement, though its date remains uncertain.

Historical records add another layer to the site’s story. The 1655 Down Survey map of Farbill barony shows no castle in this townland, though it does record that the lands of ‘Knocknent’ belonged to George Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, in 1640. Despite the loss of the physical structure, the site gained protected status under a preservation order in 1977, ironically the same year the earthworks were destroyed. Today, visitors to the area will find little visible evidence of the castle itself, though aerial photographs from 2011 show an access road leading to a quarry north of where the castle once stood, a reminder of how modern development continues to reshape these ancient landscapes.