This well-preserved bivallate enclosure, consisting of two concentric earth and stone banks with an intervening fosse, tells a layered story of Irish history spanning over a millennium. The site may have ancient origins as Bruighean da Choga, or Da Choga’s Hostel, a stopping point recorded around 600 AD that stood midway between Ballymore and Athlone. The 1837 Ordnance Survey team measured the fort at 204 paces in circumference and noted that local elders recalled seeing substantial castle ruins within it that had been repurposed as Ireland’s finest ball alley, attracting players from as far away as England and America.

The Down Survey map of Drumraney shows a tower house castle on this spot, owned in 1640 by John Dillon, listed as an ‘Irish papist’. The Dillons had been lords of this region since the Norman invasion, and they likely built their castle within the existing earthwork, possibly transforming an earlier cashel into a fortified medieval residence with a circular bawn or courtyard. Today, visitors can still make out the stone-faced rectangular depression in the northeast quadrant that appears to be the castle’s cellar or foundation, whilst a north-south bank traverses the interior and leads to a curious mound in the eastern section.

This mound holds the ruins of what the 1837 Ordnance Survey map labels ‘Sterns Folly’, a structure built by the Stearne family who transformed this ancient defensive site into a landscape feature after 1700. The enclosure’s entrance remains at the south-southeast, and the surrounding area preserves medieval field boundaries that once defined the castle grounds. Just outside the monument to the southeast, you can spot the remains of a small house site, whilst 80 metres south, traces of an old road of uncertain age are still visible in the field boundary. The site offers commanding views to the west, northwest and south; a reminder of why this location has been valued for defence, sport and spectacle across the centuries.