Site of Castle, Oldcourt, Co. Wicklow

Located on a gentle west-facing slope, this barely perceptible mound, standing just 30 centimetres high, is the only physical trace of a structure that appears on historical Ordnance Survey maps as 'Site of Castle'. The 1838 edition of the OS 6-inch map depicts the castle's footprint as a narrow rectangular outline, drawn in dots to indicate its already vanished state by that time.

The site has been subject to some confusion in archaeological records. The description originally published in the 1997 Archaeological Inventory of County Wicklow mistakenly referred to a different Oldcourt Castle located in Bray, rather than this particular monument. This error, which conflated two distinct castle sites sharing the same name, was brought to the attention of the National Monuments Service by local historian Peter Halligan and has since been corrected in official records.

Today, visitors to the site will find little to see beyond the slightly elevated ground in an otherwise unremarkable marshy field. Yet this modest bump in the landscape represents centuries of local history; a forgotten defensive structure that once stood watch over the Wicklow countryside. The castle's complete disappearance above ground serves as a reminder of how thoroughly time and the elements can erase even substantial stone buildings, leaving only the faintest archaeological footprints for modern observers to puzzle over.