When John O’Donovan surveyed the site in 1840, he found a castle fragment standing about 20 feet high and equally wide, noting it had originally matched the height and extent of nearby Oola Castle before destruction reduced it to these modest dimensions. Thomas Johnson Westropp, writing in the early 1900s, described the surviving fabric as “fairly well preserved”, though even then it was merely a shadow of its former self.

The castle’s documented history stretches back to at least 1572, when Tirrelagh O’Brien held what was then called Longhurt Castle. By 1621, the property had passed to Moriert Mac Brien of Castletown, and the 1654-56 Civil Survey reveals that Morttagh Mc Byrne, described as “an Irish Papist”, owned what was by then “a Castle house and Mill all unrepaired”. The castle appears on the 1657 Down Survey map of Coonagh Barony, depicted standing beside a river, suggesting it still held some prominence in the local landscape despite its deteriorating condition.

The property’s fortunes shifted dramatically in the late 17th century; it was confirmed to the Duke of York in 1668, confiscated in 1688, and eventually sold in 1703 to John White of Cappagh, County Tipperary. Today, visitors to the farmyard in Longford East will find no visible trace of the castle that once stood here, its stones likely incorporated into farm buildings or cleared away entirely. The site now lies buried beneath the practical infrastructure of a working dairy farm, a rather inglorious end for a structure that witnessed centuries of Irish history, from Gaelic lordships through plantation and confiscation.