Though little remains visible today beyond a grass-covered mound, this was once the stronghold of the Wafre family, Norman settlers who likely built their castle here in the early thirteenth century. The strategic location controlled both the ford and the nearby parish church of Killegland, which had been granted to the Augustinian abbey of St. Thomas in Dublin by Hugh de Lacy. By the 1190s, the area already boasted a mill and fish stocks, suggesting it was a prosperous manor from its earliest days.

The castle’s history reads like a medieval soap opera of marriages, murders, and property disputes. In 1427, the manor passed through marriage to Patrick Segrave, who was murdered in 1453, sparking a succession struggle. The Segrave family held Killegland for generations, with various members serving as sheriffs, lawyers, and occasionally finding themselves imprisoned for dodgy land deals. The most dramatic chapter came during the 1641 rebellion when Patrick Segrave, a prominent Catholic landowner, joined the uprising. After the defeat at the Battle of Kilsallaghan in 1642, he fled abroad and Royalist forces seized the castle. The property subsequently passed through various hands including Oliver Cromwell’s son Henry during the Commonwealth, and even the future King James II after the Restoration in 1660.

Archaeological investigations have revealed tantalising glimpses of the castle’s former glory. Testing has uncovered substantial double-faced walls two metres thick, cobbled surfaces, and what appears to be a rectangular bawn or enclosure measuring approximately 20 by 15 metres that once protected the tower house. Fragments of mortar and slate from the castle’s demolition layer have been found scattered across the site, along with evidence of lime production pits that likely supplied materials for its construction. The Civil Survey of 1654-6 recorded not just a castle at Killegland, but also a stone house with outhouses, a church, a mill and various cabins, painting a picture of a thriving manorial centre that dominated this stretch of the Broad Meadow River for over four centuries.