The surviving masonry sits in gently undulating rough pasture, and at first glance the earthwork around it might seem like natural ground. Look more carefully and the platform on which the tower stands reveals itself as something deliberately made, a natural outcrop of low limestone that was augmented with added earthen material to create a roughly rectangular raised base, measuring approximately 23.75 metres on its north-east to south-west axis and around 28 metres on its north-west to south-east axis.

The platform is defined by a distinct scarp, a slope or step in the ground marking the outer edge of a raised area, which survives most clearly on the south-west and north sides, where it reaches about 1.45 metres in height. On the north-east side the scarp is considerably wider and stepped in profile, running to between 12 and 14 metres across and standing between 2.5 and 2.75 metres overall. Researchers Ua Cróinín and Breen, writing in 1997, noted the tower house sits on this modified limestone base, and the unusual spread of the north-east scarp may reflect where stonework from a collapsed wall was scattered outward across the bawn, the enclosed yard typically surrounding an Irish tower house. The lightning story lends texture to the physical evidence: after the strike, large blocks of masonry reportedly broke away and were subsequently broken up and carted off to build field walls and outbuildings nearby. At least three large blocks still lie resting against the south-west side of the bawn, uncollected relics of that particular disaster. A castle well sits roughly 20 metres to the east-south-east, and cattle grazing across the site have degraded the earthwork in places, particularly along the south-east side where dense overgrowth obscures much of the scarp altogether.