Historical records from 1307 reveal that Adam de la Roche held Doonooney, along with nearby Ballyvaldon, as half a knight’s fee from the powerful Bigod family lands. This arrangement, likely predating the documented date, reflects the complex feudal relationships that shaped medieval Ireland’s landscape.

The castle itself was once an impressive earthwork structure, situated on a gently sloping hillside facing west. When antiquarian John O’Donovan surveyed the site around 1840, he described it as a flat-topped motte measuring approximately 15 metres north to south and 11 metres east to west at its summit, with a base diameter of about 34 metres and standing 4 metres high. The defensive fosse, or ditch, that once protected the fortification can still be traced along the northern side of an old field boundary, measuring 9 metres wide and about half a metre deep, with an internal diameter of roughly 46 metres.

Unfortunately, the motte was levelled sometime during the 1950s or 60s, leaving only subtle traces of its former presence. Today, visitors to the site will find a slightly raised, grass-covered circular area measuring about 60 metres east to west and 50 metres north to south, rising just 0.6 metres above the surrounding field. The proximity to a church site, located approximately 100 metres to the southeast, suggests this was once an important local centre where secular and religious power intersected in medieval Wexford.