Yet this rubble-built structure, roughly six and a half metres in external diameter, was once a working dovecote, a purpose-built pigeon house maintained to supply a steady source of fresh meat and eggs to the household of the adjacent castle. The internal face has been lost and no nesting boxes survive, but enough of the walls remain, rising to just over two and a half metres at their highest point, to give a clear sense of the building's original footprint.

The most vivid record of what the structure once looked like comes from a drawing made in 1681 by Thomas Dineley, a touring antiquarian whose sketches are held in the National Library of Ireland (MS 39). Dineley labelled the building simply as a pigeon house and captured it in some detail. His drawing shows a circular tower topped by a dome-shaped roof, from which a cupola rises over the central opening. The cupola, sometimes called a lantern or glover, served a practical dual purpose: it allowed the pigeons to fly freely in and out while shielding the interior from rain. A decorative pole rises from the very top of the cupola, suggesting the building was intended to cut a certain figure in the landscape as well as serve a functional one. The drawing places the dovecote clearly in its setting, within the wooded grounds associated with Lough Gur Castle, approximately 160 metres to the south-east.

The remains sit around 65 metres south of the lough's shoreline, tucked into a woodland area that requires a little navigation to reach. A section of the wall has collapsed, so the surviving arc gives only a partial impression of the full circuit. Visitors familiar with Lough Gur will know the site primarily for its Neolithic stone circle and other prehistoric monuments, and the dovecote tends to be passed over in that context. It is worth seeking out nonetheless, particularly if you have already been looking at Dineley's 1681 drawing, which gives a useful frame of reference for what you are actually standing in front of.