Castle, Rathronan, Co. Wexford

Though marked as a castle in ruins on 19th century Ordnance Survey maps, this tower house was likely built as a secondary seat for a younger branch of the Brown family, who had held nearby Mulrankin since at least the 13th century. The Browns of Rathronan appear in historical records as early as 1608, when Nicholas Browne was listed as a gentleman, and by 1633 the family possessed 60 acres at the adjacent townland of Ballycrosse.

The castle changed hands several times over the centuries; Thomas Browne still owned the tower and its lands in the 1650s according to the Civil Survey, but by the late 17th century it had passed to the Cliffe family. Remarkably, a branch of the Browns managed to return to their ancestral home in 1851, reclaiming their connection to this corner of County Wexford. Today, what remains is a heavily rebuilt three storey tower measuring roughly 7 metres square and 8 metres high, with few original features surviving apart from its barrel vault and a single slit window on the northwest side at second floor level.

The tower's current appearance owes much to later alterations, including the addition of decorative false crenellations along its northwest front; features that would have given it a more romantic, castle like appearance during the Gothic Revival period. Perhaps most intriguingly, the medieval tower has been incorporated into a thatched two storey house built against its southwest side, creating an unusual blend of defensive architecture and domestic comfort that speaks to the building's evolution from fortress to family home.