Aughnanure Castle is a 16th century tower house, one of more than 200 fortified tower houses built by powerful Gaelic and Anglo-Norman families in Ireland. It was a stronghold of the 'ferocious' O’Flaherty family who several centuries earlier had lost their ancestral lands around the present day Galway City to invading Anglo-Normans.

The name translates as 'field of the yew trees', an old specimen of which still guards the approaches today. Built on a low cliff over two sides of the Drimneen River, the castle was well defended and easily supplied by boat. The Tower House was protected on the land side by two walled enclosures, with a bartizan, bastions and watch towers to improve arcs of fire against attackers.