The house is no freestanding structure either; it is attached to the northern end of the west wall of a four-storey tower house, the two buildings forming a single fortified complex on flat, well-drained ground with open views in every direction. That setting was almost certainly deliberate. Whoever lived here wanted to see trouble coming.

The house dates to the seventeenth century, a period in Ireland when the boundary between domestic comfort and military necessity was blurred at best. Gun loops, narrow angled openings designed to allow a defender to fire outward while remaining protected, were a practical feature rather than a decorative one, reflecting the persistent instability of the period. The most visually arresting element of the structure is a large fireplace set into the centre of the west gable at ground floor level, its chimney stack projecting outward from the exterior wall in a gable-ended form. Attached to the south-west corner of the house are the remains of a bawn wall, a bawn being an enclosed defensive courtyard, typically of stone, that formed a protected perimeter around a tower house or fortified residence. Together, the tower house, the attached dwelling, and the bawn remnants describe a layered defensive arrangement, each element reinforcing the others. The site is referenced in works by Garner (1985) and O'Flanagan (1933), indicating it has attracted antiquarian and architectural attention for the better part of a century.