The medieval priory had already fallen into disrepair by 1595 when Sir Richard Bingham, seeing an opportunity in its solid stone walls, transformed it into a fortified tower house. Bingham placed the strategic position under Captain George Lane’s command, repurposing sacred ground for military defence during a turbulent period in Irish history.

The tower house met its end in 1651 when Sir Charles Lane, following orders from the Lord Deputy, demolished much of the structure. What remains today is a fascinating architectural palimpsest; the western wall of Bingham’s tower still stands three storeys high within the priory’s chancel, along with fragments of the north and south walls. These remnants preserve telling details of its domestic military use, including a ground floor doorway in the north wall and fireplaces on the first and second floors of the western wall, features that speak to its transformation from a place of prayer to a defensive residence.

The site sits within a subrectangular graveyard, with an ancient field system extending to the southwest that hints at the area’s long history of human occupation. Just 100 metres to the northeast stands the O’Conor Roe tower house, another reminder of the strategic importance of this location. Together, these ruins create a remarkable concentration of defensive architecture that illustrates how religious buildings were often given second lives as military strongholds in post-medieval Ireland.