The castle appears on the Down Survey maps from 1656-8, where it’s illustrated as an impressive fortification complete with towers, a chimney, and a grand gateway; quite the contrast to what visitors find today. By the time of the Civil Survey in 1654-6, the castle was already described as ‘an old Ruinous Castle’, part of a 170-acre estate that included a decayed chapel and ten tenements. The property belonged to Robert Rochford of Kilbride parish, who held substantial lands throughout the area, including holdings at Ballymacolly, Caulstown, and Cornellstowne.

The transformation from imposing fortress to barely visible ruin happened gradually over the centuries. When the Ordnance Survey mapped the area in 1836, all that remained was a fragment of wall measuring about five metres from east to west. Today, even less survives; visitors to the site will find only banks and scarps in the landscape, some related to field drainage, along with a single piece of fallen masonry that hints at the castle’s former presence.

Despite its near-complete disappearance, Vesingstowne Castle remains an important piece of Meath’s archaeological record. The site represents one of many tower houses and castles that once dotted the Irish landscape, serving as both defensive structures and symbols of Anglo-Norman and later English authority. Its decline from a substantial fortification to scattered stones mirrors the fate of countless other Irish castles, abandoned as political power shifted and new architectural styles emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries.