The circular, grass-covered area measures roughly 30 metres across and is defined by low scarps, with quarry holes visible to the southwest. Whilst local tradition associates this spot with a castle, archaeological evidence suggests it’s more likely a rath, an ancient Irish ringfort, with the actual castle of Ardmagh probably located somewhere else in the vicinity.

The site has a tangled history of ownership that reads like a legal drama spanning centuries. According to the Civil Survey of 1654-6, Christopher Plunkett of Ardmagh owned 250 acres here in 1640, including an ‘old Castle’ that appears as a tower on Down Survey maps from the 1650s. After the Cromwellian conquest, the forfeited Plunkett lands passed to Thomas Taylor, an Englishman who’d arrived in 1653 and settled at Kells. In 1680, Taylor leased the property back to Francis Plunkett, whose graveslab can still be seen in nearby Robertstown church, but the arrangement descended into chaos after Francis’s son Thomas died intestate in 1691, leaving two daughters and a widow named Bridget.

The plot thickened when Thomas’s mother Catherine, who had remarried Edward Dowdall, a captain in King James’s army, took control of the lease. Following the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, Taylor evicted Catherine from Castlecam and reclaimed Ardmagh, subsequently leasing portions back to both Catherine and Bridget. The dispute rumbled on for decades; in 1720, Francis Plunkett’s original lease was discovered, prompting his granddaughters to pursue their claim through the courts. Though they initially won their case, the House of Lords ultimately dismissed it in 1728, bringing this particular chapter of Irish land disputes to a close.